With that is Sunday, the weekend has flown past and we are in the final furlong. But what fantastic final furlong it is. Apathy UK are anything but apathetic. They are incredibly young, vigilantly angry and astonishingly well versed in their instruments. They boil with righteous indignity, and they prove to be highly competent in screaming at the injustices of this world.
Read MoreFrayle are low-key and haunting. They produce metal that is doused with fragile vulnerability and ethereal refrains. They prove that you don’t need to be heavy to have weight and mass. There is a minimal maudlin nature to their sound.
Read MoreSo, this is it. Damnation Festivals’ grand step up into the big league. And if you are going to move home then do it in style. Whilst we were in the end sixty-six sales shy of the blazing “sold out as fuck” sign, shifting 5,934 tickets (double the capacity for even the busiest previous Damnation) is phenomenal. And then there is the bill. A smorgasbord of special sets, UK exclusives, and representatives from every corner of the extreme metal world. The fact that the absence of billed headliner Ministry was a complete non-event, is kudos to the strength of the bill as a whole. In many ways (in terms of performance, crowd size and participation, and general buzz in the room) it felt distinctly like Pig Destroyer were headlining and everything else was building up to and away from them. But more about that later.
Read MoreSo this new stair-free incarnation of Damnation festival means that with a good wind, a willing bladder and a packed lunch you can actually plan on seeing 17 bands back to back. But for those of you more discerning folk who are still trying to work in merchandise shopping and beer perusing, we at ROCKFLESH are proud to present our five must see sets of the weekend. Based entirely on the subjective views of our black/death metal correspondent Stewart, these are the acts that he will personally get very grumpy if you dare not grace them with your presence (yes we know that he has not included Converge doing “Jane Doe”, yes we know that is not on and yes we will supply you with this email address).
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