Damnation Festival at Leeds University Union – 05/11/11

It’s been a few years since we have attended The Damnation Festival in Leeds and after a few pints in The Dry Dock, a pub on a boat we headed over to Leeds University hoping to remember our way around the building and be able to find the stages. No chance of this at first but we gradually got our bearings. It was not the best news for the death metal contingent though. First we had heard the news prior to going that Decapitated had been forced to cancel after being in a near serious accident on a flight a couple of days before. Luckily the Poles were alright. Secondly Cerebral Bore’s singer had missed her flight too meaning that the band were forced to just play a couple of songs without her. First band we were going to catch was in the absolutely rammed Mine area and I tried my best to head down the front to get a few snaps leaving Gizmo to get his beer spilled at the back as he attempted to take some notes. (PW)

A Forest Of Stars seemed a little uncomfortable on the tiny stage. Not least because wedging seven people into that space, but also possibly because they are a curious choice to have play so early on. With just half an hour and songs tending towards the 10 minute or so mark they are not a band to approach lightly, or if you are unfamiliar with their music. They brought an angular and undulating sound to the cramped space, their classically infused progressive Black Metal getting in to all the nooks and crannies. The sinewy shape of Mister Curse, the singer, shrank in on himself during the lengthy instrumental parts if only to avoid colliding with the elbows of the twin guitars and violin, but threw himself into every vocal line as though needing to squeeze out every word. It was an austere set, two songs long including the mournful ‘Sorrows Impetus’ and unbroken by any crowd interaction. The nice clear sound was greeted warmly enough by the front of the crowd but from the inordinate amount of chatter about me nearer the back interest waned in many and I heard the word ‘pretentious’ used a couple of times. Personally I found them more intriguing than compelling but hope that the next time I see them it will be on their own terms as they have a lot to say and need a longer stage and bigger set to express themselves. (Gizmo)

I headed to the thankfully more spacious Terrorizer stage next to see A Man Called Catten. Having been a big Medulla Nocte fan and seen Paul in a host of other bands during his career it was good to catch some of these songs live again. The intensity of old was certainly still there as were some of the facial contortions from the singer. I didn’t particularly recognise any of the rest of the band and not sure what has happened to the rest of Medulla apart from drummer Jammer who has recently given up the sticks for good. They did a good job though with some of the old songs which passed by in a ferocious head melting spasmodic blur. ‘Twice The Trauma’, ‘Bleed This Illness’ and the classic ‘All My Friends Are Dead’ were amongst the set. It seemed to divide those wandering in, some of who took a quick look at practically legged it out looking for something a little calmer and others banging away in contentment obviously like me having caught some of these songs live before. One complaint was that the band had too much dry ice cloaking their set but apart from that they delivered a nasty acerbic kick to the balls. (PW)

Next up on the Zero Tolerance stage were caveman battle doom three piece Conan, a band I was really looking forward to. The first thing that is apparent is that the sound whilst good and clear is way too quiet. As a friend remarked, “If Einsturzende Neubauten are the sound of new buildings collapsing then Conan are the shockwave that starts it.” It is a shame but despite the polite volume level which made it actually possible to talk to your neighbour, the density and heaviness of their slow crawling doom is a belligerent beast and the subsonic assault still hit the guts and the walls hard. It is a huge, metronomic sound that creates a slow, steady wave of nodding heads and you forget that it’s still light outside.

‘Krull’ rides in on a great black doom riff and surfing the feedback with the echoing vocals of hoodie clad guitarist Jon Davis sounding like a long lost battle. This is great stuff, and the iron heavy anchor of drummer Paul O’Neill and bassist/vocalist Phil Coumbe drives everything forward in a solid, determined manner.

Too brief, too quiet but still excellent and it was where Damnation really kicked off for me. Conan are a band built to level walls, please let them do their job Mr Sound Engineer. (Gizmo)

This was my third encounter with the Norwegian Shining and I was expecting great things from them and that is what we got for the next 30 minutes of their all too brief set. The whole of the band seemed like they had massive fireworks up their butts (well it was Nov 5th) and were supercharged along with the manic music and powerful lighting. Songs like ‘The Madness And The Damage Done’ have been honed to perfection live by the band and despite the complexity seem note perfect. Munkby has no problems switching between sax and guitar whilst handling the vocals and it’s all quite a delirious and dextrous display. The chaos mathematical charge of Fisheye stewed heads and the group managed to find the time to drop in their excellent cover of King Crimson classic 21st ‘Century Schizoid Man’ for the finale. Follow that, anyone!

We were increasingly bumping into people by now who were having problems with stage times shifting and it did mean there was some confusion and it made it really difficult to go and catch say 20 mins of one band before the whole set of another you particularly wanted to see.

This combined with a constant throng of people clogging the arteries of the venue made it quite uncomfortable and overbearing at times. We had hoped to catch a bit of Turisas but they were one casualty of war that defeated us, next time we will greet you in battle though (PW)

Instead we made it over to the Terrorizer stage just in time for Dragged Into Sunlight. Having amassed an obscenely big crowd (granted, I’m sure many in the room had never seen the band before), the scent of joss sticks at least made the ambience somewhat more pleasant. The last time I saw DIS was back in 2008 playing one of their first gigs on a most oddly paired bill with Gama Bomb and Bonded By Blood and it’s interesting to see that they have changed very little since then. There’s not a hint of sunlight on the darkened stage, everything appears kind of minimal the way the musicians play with backs to the crowd. Earth-shattering screams traverse the foundation of scraping guitars and menacing bass sound creating a feel of intensity and horror. Through their three song set including ‘Boiled Angel/Buried With Leeches’ I can’t help but feel that while musically they tick all the right boxes there is something I don’t quite connect with. Perhaps it is the lack of stage presence and visual focal point?

So over to the main stage again just in time for some of Evile’s set. Having only watched them last month at the Picturedrome (reviewed on this site) I don’t want to go into too much detail, however I do have to give my homeboys their props they really tore the place up! There’s tons of energy here as they give an electric performance without a hint of end-of-tour fatigue on display – on the contrary in fact they seem on absolute top form. They hurtle through tracks old and new, with fan fave ‘Killer From The Deep’ breaking the speed barrier with its punishing riffage while the more recent ‘Eternal Empire’ is proving to be a real foot-stomping beast of a number! Ol Drake and Joel Graham float between mic stands while keeping that slow ‘n’ heavy rhythm pushing forward. Being entirely honest this wasn’t a fantastic day for me and wasn’t blown away by any of today’s performances, but Evile delivered an outstanding performance and for me were the band of the day.

Conversely, Chthonic were one of the bands I had been very much looking forward to seeing today but their performance left me totally underwhelmed. I got into them on the Relentless Recurrence album and on CD I have always enjoyed the way they mix in traditional elements with quite an eerie, atmospheric brand of symphonic black metal. I have always missed them before when they have played the UK so today was my first time; I’d been told that they put on a good show however today things were far more stripped back than I was expecting with no theatrics and no frills. The thrashy ‘Spell Of Setting Sun: Mirror Of Retribution’ comes across as very one-dimensional and the yapping vocals begin to grate after a while, with the more atmospheric touches totally lost in the mix. ‘Southern Cross’ is missing the tasty oriental nuances that make it leap out on record, and perhaps with band members absent today they weren’t able to make it work. The performance was staid and static and about as exciting as watching the average bunch of corpsepaint-for-beginners COF wannabes fumble about down the Snooty Fox…although on the bright-side, being stood right in-front of Doris (nice legs!) at least softened the blow. (LH)

Due to a personal Spinal Tap moment that left me heading down more blind corridors than any building could feasibly contain, when I finally find the Jagermeister stage, Grand Magus are already into their stride with the hugely anthemic ‘Like The Oar strikes The Water’ guiding me in and up the stairs.

They are a classic stripped down metal three piece with a sound as resonant as a huge bronze bell and the charismatic JB’s voice calling out all the way to the back row. ‘Silver Into Steel’ has the crowd in the palm of their hand, singing along in every corner. There may be no pit but it seems that every head in the room is banging as the no frills, supremely classy metal riffs just roll through and beat you down with hook after hook. Sticking to songs from their last two albums Iron Will and Hammer Of The North, they just keep on hitting me with anthem after anthem. ‘Hammer of the North’, ‘I The jury’ and the thundering ‘The Shadow Knows’ have a shining fire to them live that just bursts from the notes and my head doesn’t stop moving until the last note fades.

Great, great set and such a timely reminder that heavy metal is in knowing and safe hands with these three highly talented warriors. (Gizmo)

It was the temptation of two bands that had got me along to the festival, both of which I have seen in the distant past as well as at Hellfest a couple of years ago after they both decided to start playing shows again. First up were Doom who unlike their name are legendary crust punk with dreads to match and a certain grind sensibility. Spying the set-list in front of me I did a quick count and noticed there were almost 30 songs on it. After the intro Crass classic ‘Reality Asylum’ thankfully the band did not break a string (unlike at Hellfest) and used the impetus to charge into things. Again we were struck by the energy and aggression from songs such as the speaking for itself ‘Nazi Die’ and all too relevant ‘Bury The Dead Not The Debt’  Singer Denis charged around and the thick heavy chugging bass from Scoot (have you checked out Vallenfyre yet?), cut straight through us. It seemed many had been here for this and you could have filled a few squats with the amount of people watching. Bolstered by the gnarly grooves crusties showered over the top causing chaos and security seemed a bit taken aback, spilling Luci’s full pint in the process and not even apologising (grrr)! The songs kept coming and some of them were out and out classics such as the excellent ‘Exploitation’ which really was the song it seemed like everyone was waiting for, and caused considerable chaos. Not the ideal venue for the band perhaps but I am hoping to catch them again some time soon, its been too long and with everyone from Amebix to Antisect reforming it’s still very much a case of in crust we trust!

Nobody could ever have expected that two unassuming guys pushing baldness and middle age away with determination and rebooting their old drum machine could cause that much interest but this is Godflesh we are talking about. For those with a view in the assembled throng, they were not much to look at; Justin Broadrick strumming and singing on one side of the stage and G.C. Green bass slinging on the other but boy there was no escaping their sound. Although there is talk of new songs this was Godflesh old school and we started with songs from their best and indeed one of the best albums of its kind ever ‘Streetcleaner.’ ‘Like Rats’ ground us down stomp heavy and the battering stop start lurch of ‘Christbait Rising’ had me completely in the zone. I have frankly laughed hearing people post event crying about the music being too loud and that the band were a load of noisy rubbish, perhaps you should have gone home after Turisas. Everyone watching here seemed to be totally into things and it was the music that worked it’s magic sounding every bit as good as it did off the original vinyl recording. Other albums were visited and highlights of the ten track set included for me the clank and clang of ‘Mothra’ and the grandiose sermon that is ‘Pure.’  All in all excellent and everything we could have hoped for in 2011, I look forward to anything new from Godflesh with lust. (PW)

Ulver have a job on their hands. Up on the main stage we have just been subjected to an utterly brutal beating at the hands of a seemingly furious Godflesh out to punish an audience with volume and the kind of beats that shook every bone in my skull. With their extending playing time, though, the idiosyncratic Norwegians seemed like they should be a mellow oasis of recuperation before heading off into the night. With Godflesh and Conan they were the band I was most keen to see.

Initial signs are worrying: they seem to spend a significant amount of their extended running time fiddling around with the set up and there is more than one call of frustration from the waiting crowd as this stretches out. When they do finally begin, I am briefly buoyed when they delve into one of my favourite albums of all time, ‘Perdition City’ with a suitably sombre back projection.

There is little movement from the band themselves and no communication with the pretty packed arena and so it slowly becomes apparent that the projections are the important focus of the set. Through them we are led into a space that is kind of chill out Dance Music for Metalheads. This is where things fall apart for me. Now I love Ulver on record, almost every stylistic twist and turn they have made over the years has had something for me but here, at Damnation, they let me down. The atmosphere seems deflated and I hear restless rustling around me, there is none of the emotional intensity I expected. In fact that emotion is precisely what I fail to catch. There is no doubting the meticulous attention to detail in putting together the sound and vision, and you can’t help but admire them as artists with vision and refusal to be bound into one corner but I’m afraid everything slips away from me until I am left so flat that I leg it to catch the tail end of Heavy Devi and co.

Sadly I’m not alone in this migration. (Gizmo)

It was a hard choice between Ulver and Devin Townsend especially seeing as we were only going to be able to catch half a set or so due to train confusion. As we wanted to be awake to catch ours it was obviously Devin that we needed like a breath of fresh caffeine so that’s where we headed and I watched him dart around the photo pit gurning like a loon. As mentioned at Bloodstock I still have not had the chance to catch up with a lot of the deluge of new material but what we saw included some older classics to tempt us with too. We wanted crushing grooves and some ‘Truth’ that’s what we got, we wanted interplanetary peace and some ‘Om’ action no problem and as for Ziltoid, all present and correct. The insanity of Devin is quick to spread and it has obviously infected the gathering throng who are in party mood. One song guaranteed to get a party in full swing is ‘Bad Devil’ which was a great swinging success. One has to feel slightly sorry for the rest of the band, they are present, correct and perfectly pitched but all eyes are on the front man as he hogs the limelight joking with the audience, darting around and pulling faces at everyone who catches his eye. It was a shame to cut it short but the days ‘Supercrush’ had become a bit too much and air and space to move in was needed so we left during that apt number staggering through Leeds in search of illusive trains.

Review Gizmo, Luci Herbert, Pete Woods