Live Review : Damnation Festival on November 8th 2025

So what have we learned at Damnation 2025? Well! For one, people do like a good sit-down. During the four months leading up to the festival, its forum has been full of requests for more seating opportunities. Organiser Gav, being the omnipresent granter of dreams, made that possible by putting a whole swathe of chairs in at the front right of the main stage and at the back of the smallest auditorium. From the moment doors opened on Saturday, those seating options are occupied and stay occupied until the last notes of Napalm Death are ringing in our ears. Come 9:00pm on Sunday, there are so many bodies strewn around the place that the venue is reminiscent of the last days of the Somme. If a surface area could be sat or laid on, that opportunity is taken. For all our love of circular pits, there is now potentially a strong argument to make Damnation an all-seated affair with maybe even bed pods available around back for those who need a quick nap halfway through. Putting aside the flippancy, the dutiful reaction to the request for more seating options proves beyond doubt the fan-led mentality of Damnation. Fans and organisers exist in a unique symbiotic relationship that seems monumentally different to other events of this scale. Gav and Paul know their audience intimately, and the audience trusts them implicitly to deliver. The super-sized double edition 20th anniversary damnation is a triumph on so many different levels, so let's get at it with our day one summary.

As ever, the two smaller rooms (on day one monikered the Holy Goat Brewing and Eyesore Merch Stages) run concurrently. Great effort is made to ensure that the two competing acts do not conflate too much in terms of style, but the handy drape-covered passageway between the two means that it is incredibly easy to go halvesies and watch an element of both sets. 

Oryx are first on in the latter venue and fittingly this is their first visit to the UK. Hailing from Denver, they specialise in a slow, creeping version of metal that is dark and dank but awash with emotion. A level of distortion mixes with a reverberating heaviness. It is an entrancing mix and feels immersive and entrancing.

Over on the sister stage, Devastator from Derbyshire are taking an alternative track and going all out with the speed. Their style is old school thrash mixed with a couple of splashes of black metal. They seem rather chuffed to be invited to the party and happily cavort around the stage like a bevy of toddlers high on tartrazine. The two completely juxtaposing styles of the opening bands puts down a marker for the sheer variety of the goodies to come over the weekend.

The opening act on the main stage, Overhead, The Albatross, take us in yet another different direction. The sheer scale of the production allowed in the main auditorium is a gift to bands who don't usually get to play in this sort of sandbox. These Dublin lads, who have been much hailed by festival Svengali Gav, absolutely run with the opportunity. The show they put on to christen the Pins and Knuckles stage is fully astonishing and almost faultless. It is post-rock at its most emotive and awe-inspiring. Flanked by a massive screen of undulating visuals, the band unfurl a delicate but resolutely widescreen euphoric wall of sound. It is utterly divine, full of texture and soaring notes. An absolute triumph that leaves many in tears less than 60 minutes into the whole event.

Back on eyesore Zeruel are bringing yet another of metals many diverse subgenres into play. The very late 80’s indie phenomenon of shoegaze has for many years sat outside metals gate towers. However blackgaze pioneers such as Deafheaven (more of them later) brought it into the fraternity and now acts such as Zeruel are running with it, combining its lush tones with a heavier athletic. They produce exquisite walls of sound that impressively blend melody with a corrosive unconformity. There is a real intensity to their delivery, which plays off brilliantly with the fragility of the music.

Whilst Zeruel are being spellbinding and austere with their approach, next door Necrot are going down death metal route 101 with a frantic display of gore-obsessed obscenities. Both styles have absorbing intensity but there is a raw and primordial feel to Necrot. They have a feral simplicity to them. There is no finesse and fineries, this is just pure nastiness incarnate, and it is really rather striking in its aggressive negativity.

Castle Rat also make use of the oodles of space afforded by the gigantic mainstage. They go full theatrical on our bottoms with a cosplay-tastic display of fantasy-obsessed trad metal. They visuals, combined with X-rated antics on stage, make you feel like you are watching an adult version of She-Ra, where Evil-Lyn developed an unhealthy obsession with Princess Adora. There is an awful lot of am-dram cavorting going on stage, which sees the Rat Queen (played eloquently by Riley Pinkerton) slay the Rat Reapersess with a rather large sword, only for the latter character to be miraculously brought back to life by a magical potion. This level of Dungeons & Dragons role play only works if the music is good, thankfully, Castle Rat superbly mine a richly commercial vein of doom metal. A sumptuously entertaining booking.

Back in the realm of the head to head encounters Meryl Streek are singularly pushing the envelope of what Damnation considers to be its musical offering. What they do share with the other acts on the bill is a fine credential of righteous anger. Meryl isn’t just pissed off; he is livid, and that indignation boils over in his performance. His spoken word delivery over minimal punk might seem a world away from Sunday night headliner Napalm Death, but they share a belief that music is a potent political power and for 40 heady minutes Mr Streek screams at the injustices of the Catholic Church in Ireland (amongst others) and provides an at times uncomfortable but in the end engaging experience.

Going against him is a band that are already written into the Damnation history books. Deadguy’s performance of “Fixation on a Co-Worker” will go down in the lexicon as one of the most, if not the most, frantic and violent shows the festival has ever seen. They bonded so well with organisers and audience that a mere two years later they are back, promoting a rather astonishing new record that feels to be fixation rebooted for 2025. Whilst the scenes of chaos from before are not quite repeated, Deadguy still prove to be an incredibly vitriolic and combustible live proposition. We are watching five middle-aged men go through the motions they never realistically thought they would do again. There is no safe word or safety catch here. They play the show like it is their last, and guitarist Keith Huckins defies the requests of the stage crew and heads out into the crowd with his wireless pack. He ends up in the heart of the pit, and the resolute commitment to chaos sums up why Deadguy are still such a vital live act and will continue to be asked back. 

For all the intensity and antagonisation, the Damnation crowd likes a bit of mellow. Messa provides a soothing and restorative bath of understated melodic wonderfulness. They are slight and they are at times unassuming, but at the heart of their attraction is Alberto’s astonishing guitar work. It feels almost classical in its dexterity and virtuoso charm. It builds within the tracks, and whilst it is the one thing that makes Messa stand out from other acts doing this form of brooding doom, it doesn’t eclipse the other members. A moment of redemptive salvation in a sea of relentless noise, Messa go down particularly well with those in the seated sections. 

Dimscûa’s story is frankly extraordinary. They made an album, “Dust Eater”, for their own entertainment. Somehow it got to Damnation’s Big Boss Gav, and he raved about it on the podcast he shares with Arctangent owner James Scarlett. From there, what was a bedroom project has blossomed to a fully functioning unit with a fevered following. The room isn’t just inhabited by a few curious onlookers interested to see what all the fuss is about, it is filled to the brim with an eager crowd already familiar with the album. What is equally extraordinary is how good the band are for what is essentially their first ever show. They are an astonishing cacophony of monochrome shades. There is a penetrating harshness that juxtaposes with a fragile vulnerability. There are waves of crunching sound, but it is the harrowing emotion that grabs you. Having only been booked two weeks ago, they are now competing for the set of weekend. They even manage to draw a larger crowd than the much-anticipated Portrayal of Guilt.

Whilst not originally planned, this still feels like one of the most painful clashes as what the bands share is a desire to use their music to explore the human condition and specifically their own emotional turmoil. Portrayal of Guilt are black metal for grown-ups. They shave the genre of all its histrionics and teen fantasies and instead reimagine it as a way of encapsulating the horrors of simply living modern life. They are raw and coarse and just bulging with unrelenting intensity. Yet another set where nothing is left in the dressing room.

Orbit Culture have chosen to use Damnation as the Manchester stop of the UK shows. This means they bring a level of production that feels distinctly odd for the time of day. They are brilliant and they have a level of confidence and professionalism that makes you realise that they are probably already outgrown this festival. They are on the way to much bigger stages and events and this will likely become one of those head-shaking moments in years to come when you recall that a band of the stature of Orbit Culture actually played this festival. Everything feels big and anthemic. The songwriting is astonishing, and each track is precision-engineered to sound like musical skyscrapers, dwarfing everything else around them. We get a truncated version of the set they are playing on their own headline tour, but it still has enough might and scale to seriously impress. The tracks from the new album “Death Above Life” sound utterly amazing. A heady collision of commerciality and guttural power. It leans in on everything wonderful about metal. It crackles with kinetic energy but is crafted enough to provide communal sing-along moments. This band will be huge, and this will be one of those I was there moments. 

As stated, there are points where the clashes feel like a no-win scenario. Death Metallers Brodequin and Danish Black Metal project Afsky offer the extreme non-compromising sides of both their respective sub-genres. Both are astonishingly brittle and simultaneously complex live propositions. Many decide that the only way to capture their very rare appearances in this country (this is Brodequin’s UK debut and only Afsky’s second visit to this soil) is to do both, and the interlinking corridor becomes a busy thoroughfare of sweaty individuals. Black Metal has hitherto been rather cartoon and sixth-form poetry in its level of malignant evil, but Afsky feel the real deal. Their music is annihilating knotty but also blissfully basic. It is pure energised rage, nasty and nihilistic. But there is also a beauty in their aural desolation, their cold composure is actually captivating, and there are glimmers of hope in the middle of their stark anguish.

On the other side of the wall, Brodequin sound like all hope is being extinguished. There are the personification of the forthcoming apocalypse in musical form. It takes such musical prowess and frankly guts to create something this close to existential noise. Their set consists of unrelenting waves of seemingly discombobulated sound that marry together into a maelstrom of tempestuous intent. This is extreme metal taken to probably its furthest point. There is no melody, and there is no let up. Every time it feels like there is something that could masquerade as a tune, it then shifts and moves back to its monotone grandeur. Two astonishing parallel sets that once again proves Damnation’s ability to bring across acts you just simply wouldn't see in this country. 

Matt Pike is a bare-chested legend. He is the master of the stoner riff and a veritable institution in our world. Whilst High On Fire are what Mike did after Sleep Imploded, they have become themselves a cornerstone of our world. It is the nasty and distorted side of the blues. Big monolithic crushing riffs, backed by pounding rhythmic drums and galloping bass. Their set is an absolute masterclass in stagecraft. Mike gives what the faithful want and draws out gushing fountains of blues-drenched guitar. It is a joy to behold, and the by now sizeable audience are swept away in the whole majesty of it all.

Back in the land of clashes, we get more variety in the type of acts drawn to play alongside each other. Gost have haunted Damnation once before as the after-show choice back at Leeds in 2019. They exist in the bleak world of darkwave, a bastardised version of electronica that combines metal’s harsh tendencies with industrial elements and noodles of synthesisers. It all comes across as a feral Pet Shop Boys; EDM for the socially dysfunctional. It is certainly carved itself a place within the damnation fraternity, and it is well-received even if they don't use all of their allocated slot.

On the other side of the divide, Panzerfaust are being big-screen hi high-dynamic black metal. They wander the same corridors as Behemoth, taking what used to be an insular and underproduced art form and inverting it into a Panovision up-tempo monster. It is arena-sized black metal, it retains the distent for humanity but wraps it up in high production values and the use of orchestration. A brilliantly euphoric performance that rips through the beyond capacity room. 

Deafheaven have always divided the faithful. Some consider them to be the second coming and in “Sunbather” to be the protagonists of probably the finest metal album of the last couple of decades. But some feel they are interlopers into our world, pretenders trying to sanitise the brutality and degradation with their short hair and street clothes. Tonight they play it safe, we get a distinctly metallic set drawn almost exclusively from their quite astonishing new album, which sees them return in force to the black gaze of old (the previous two releases had gone distinctly in a new wave direction). They are a majestic beasts, heavy and haunting but also transcendental and intellectually challenging. They play with metal like no other act, using the course heaviness to drive the tracks, but there is also a raw emotional resonance that tugs at the heartstrings. It is awe-inspiring to see them on such a large canvas, and they draw one of the biggest crowds of the evening. We get one solitary visit to their masterpiece, and it is obvious how much “Sunbather” is venerated by the ecstatic reaction that greets ‘Dream House’. Deafheaven’s Damnation debut has been long coming and delivers everything that we would have wanted. They fit so much into the Damnation aesthetic, loving metal but being unafraid to play with its parameters. They have only just left the stage, but a return visit is already overdue.

The beauty of Damnation is that it is an education in the extremities. There will be those already devoted to Wormrot and Ef, but most of those who make up the simultaneously capacity crowds in both rooms are there out of curiosity and relying on the booking prowess of our Gav. On both counts, he gets it so right. EF are post-rock from Gothenburg and this evening are providing a very rare rendition of the much-regarded debut album “Give Me Beauty…Or Give Me Death!”. It is an extraordinary exercise in world-building. The vintage footage of a utopian alternative past provides a fantastic foil to the emotive music that fills the room. It is hauntingly beautiful, full of exquisite and delicate melody. Soaring passages full of passion and pathos. Rather than being buried as a secondary instrument, the cello tonight plays a lead role, magnificently mournful, it adds an extra dimension to the whole sound. It is a bewitching and hypnotic experience, and as each track comes to an end, there is a little pause as the audience composes itself before breaking into rapturous reception. In the other room, there is an equally life-affirming experience happening, but of a completely different context and conception.

 Wormrot are a tsunami of power, a cocktail of rage and purveyor of channelled aggression. The place goes absolutely ballistic, and the bodies hurtle over the barrier with machine-gun-like velocity. It is a beautiful archaic picture of complete chaos. Wormrot don't use all the time because to be frank neither they nor the audience are in a fit state to keep up this level of frenetic intensity for longer than forty odd minutes. A name often spoken about in hushed whispers amongst the grindcore massive, and now we know why. 

Having an act from a genre that sits adjacent to our world take the special guest slot on the main stage on day one is if we are honest a bit of a gamble. However, as we keep saying, you really shouldn't doubt our Gav, and Perturbator brings the type of staging that you could only dream of at Leeds. It takes a while to realise that the risers that James Kent’s keyboards and Dylan Hyard's drum kit are respectively sat on are constantly moving. They come together and then apart with synchronised regularity. It is astonishing to watch and just adds to the specialness of the whole thing. Musically, it most brings to mind early Goth, and interestingly, it was James's father, Nick Kent, who was first to write about Siouxie and the Banshees and an early version of The Cure. It feels invigorating to have something different at the heart of Damnation. Whilst it does feel alien in part, you can also see where the connections are into our world and the lasting feeling is that darkwave has now found its place amongst Damnation's carnival of genres.

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die are purveyors of positive vibes. They trade in an atmospheric style of Emo that brings to mind Godspeed You! Black Emperor on a good day. In the middle of all the nihilism and mordant intensity, it is quite nice to get something that actually feels optimistic and enthusiastic about the future. Most people are tempted by the transcendental black metal of Gaerea, but those who do choose this American hybrid nod along happily.

A bare few yards away, as said, Portugal’s Gaerea are doing something astonishingly versatile with black metal. They have always produced Black metal that feels expansive and euphoric as opposed to insular and miserable, but the new material from the forthcoming album loss takes it to a whole different level. It now isn’t just the obscuring face covering that reminds you of Sleep Token, they have taken the fragile intensity of modern metal's biggest success story and welded it to their sound. Instead of being a emotionless and detached, this is black metal with all the feels. It is absolutely brilliant in its staging and in its all-encompassing jubilation. It feels blissful and connected with the joy at the centre of the universe. It also looks exquisite with the stripped-back setting (no amps, no fixtures, just the band) and the flashing emblems on either side of the stage. An absolute triumph. 

Twelve hours of constant music makes for a very long day, especially when you know you have to do it all again in just another twelve hours. It is understandable then that a sizeable chunk of the attendees decide to call it a night before Corrosion of Conformity play their only European show of the year. The sad fact is that those who have chosen to go home early miss out on one of the finest Corrosion Of Conformity performances in a long while.  Pepper Keenan is a contrary figure, and if he doesn't want to be there he will make it very known with both his persona and his behaviour. It turns out tonight he is absolutely over the moon to have flown across the Atlantic to play one solitary show. His breezy demeanour drives what is an incredibly prosaythic celebration of one of heavy music’s great survivors. Essentially, Corrosion of conformity are a blues band, a battered and tarnished blues band, but a blues band at the heart. We get for all intents and purposes a greatest hits set, and there is nothing from after 2000’s Imperial “America’s Volume dealer” (we are told that the backdrop comes from the new record that will drop next year but we get nothing from it). It is an utterly wonderful commemoration of a band that seldom get the due that they deserve. As they roar into the final three tracks, it may well be just the faithful that are left, but those upfront lose their collective shit for vote with a bullet and the bodies begin to fly. Albatross is greeted like a declaration of world peace and closer Clean my wounds have all the souls left in the joint singing along with at the tops of their voice When they are on tiptop form, there is nobody like corrosion for conformity and tonight they rightfully illustrate why so many of us love and venerate them. An absolute blistering example of heavenly blues rock.

And that’s day one – day two to follow…… don’t change that dial

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!

Corrosion Of Conformity + Gaerea + The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die + Perturbator + Wormrot + EF + Deafheaven + Panzerfaust + Gost + High On Fire + Brodequin + Afsky + Orbit Culture + Portrayal Of Guilt + Dimscûa + Messa + Deadguy + Meryl Streek + Castle Rat + Necrot + Zeruel + Overhead, The Albatross + Devastator + Oryx