Gig Review: Damnationfest 2012

So it's that time of year again when I can write a review of a metal festival, post it, then link to it in as many places as possible so that a vast array of meatheads can email me and post comments to tell me LOL UR GAY GWAR WER AWESUM etc. Admittedly, Gwar didn't play Damnationfest this year. But you get the general idea.

Note for Damnationfest organisers: get Gwar in for next year. If there isn't any simulated sex onstage between bandmembers and people in penguin costumes, I'm not coming.

As always for a large multi-stage festival, this review comes loaded with the caveat that I am one man who quite enjoys standing or sitting in one spot for some length of time, and so I will be covering a small subsection of the 23 bands that played this year. You want me running around taking copious notes based on two tracks caught from each performer? Fucking pay me.

The festival itself was as well-structured and maintained as ever – set times were adhered to, there was a hefty merchandise and stall area, and the Student Union site allows for a thorough raiding of a small supermarket and bakery when alcohol and crushing noise just aren't enough. This more than makes up for the inevitable navigation nightmare that ensues in tight winding corridors when bands finish and their sweaty herd decides to take a stroll to another stage. Speaking of stages, a return to a larger stage layout from the last time I attended (2010, fact fans) was more than welcome. With The Refectory as the largest stage, sometimes it was even possible to attain breathing space in the audience.

So, music then. I kickstarted my day with the first band available – the brutal and incendiary Ravens Creed, who filter old school metal and thrash through a sludgey funnel to produce riffs so meaty that they bleed on their way out of the speakers. It is bastard heavy stuff, which fills the tight confines of the Eyesore stage in an extremely satisfying fashion. All this and a quick derogatory reference to hipsters before launching into a song titled “Stand Up And Be Cunted”. Recommended.

Ravens Creed

Next I wander along to the The Atrocity Exhibit, who peddle a fairly bog standard approach to crusty grindcore with strong death metal elements. It is technically accomplished stuff and there is, to turn a phrase, nowt wrong wi' it. But there's also nothing to particularly fire my enthusiasm. They come across as lineup-filler to my ears. If the genre is your bag, you might feel differently. Onwards to Hawk Eyes, the openers on the main stage. These guys probably fit comfortably into the post-hardcore bracket. But as discussed on this august site previously, who the fuck doesn't? This is Mike Patton worship at a fairly advanced level, melody and chaos being thrust at the crowd in equal measure. There are haircuts, but obviously some talent behind them. As a Leeds band they are carrying the local banner proudly, and certainly are in possession of a fine example of the Leeds alternative sound. I know what I mean by that. No one else ever seems to. What, you want clarity? Go read a mainstream site. I was tempted to stay and catch some more, but time was against me.

Hang The Bastard

And I was quite glad it was, in the end. It allowed me to catch a good chunk of the elegantly-named Hang The Bastard, who are probably the most polite sludgecore band on the planet. In a genre populated almost exclusively by heavily-bearded men who like to drink heavily and punch their fans in the face, it is refreshing to be addressed from stage in-between tectonic slabs of metal by a chap who speaks to a baying crowd like they are his girlfriend's mum. They do what they do very well – and let's not fool ourselves here, every sludge band on the planet sounds exactly the same. Variations on Eyehategod and Iron Monkey, rinse and repeat. It's a genre that wallows proudly in its influences, and while I usually find that cause for concern I'm happy to make an exception for the likes of Hang The Bastard. They have the requisite number of fat bastards, colossal grooving riffs and glass-in-throat gargling to make me a happy man. Another promising find.

Wodensthrone

Upon removing myself to the Eyesore stage again to see Wodensthrone, I find that in my absence a vast swathe of the attendees have engaged in asexual reproduction to form an impenetrable mass that I can only access via wedging myself between the bar, other stinking humans and a wheelchair access device. This is ridiculously uncomfortable, but I suffer through the incredible pain (probably more than you have ever experienced) to see a fair whack of the set. From my agonising position near the back of a low room with a grooved, curved ceiling and multiple open spaces to either side (detail I will throw in to make any sound engineers reading this bite the back of their hand in terror) most of what I can hear is a muffled cacophony of guitars and distorted keyboards. Using my sensitive and astounding critic powers, I can tell that Wodensthrone are something pretty damn impressive. Atmospheric, melodic black metal played right down the nose. The band themselves are obviously engrossed in their performance, which has a knock-on effect of drawing the audience in despite a relative lack of movement or extroverted energy onstage. Having lost several limbs in my contorted position, I retreat after catching enough of them to ensure they are a quality Jormungandr-bothering enterprise.

Blacklisters

The stage empties out significantly for the next band I catch, Blacklisters. Which is a shame, and probably largely because they fall under the aforementioned category of 'hipster' for the majority of metalheads attending. That's not to say they're not, mind. But if they are, then they are top-notch hipster entertainment. Spasming noise rock that doesn't sound a million miles away from an amped-up Shellac being fed into a woodchipper, the major flaw in a performance more physical than most is that they give off a palpable sense of too-cool-for-this that they get away with primarily because they are fucking good at what they are doing. They're probably a bunch of cunts, but that's kind of alright when their music makes every odd-numbered organ in your body leap twelve feet to the left.

Back to the main stage for Textures, a band I seem to not be able to get behind despite their influences being big favourites of mine. But I think that is largely the problem. It's all second-hand Meshuggah riffs alternated with melodic sections that sound like either Devin Townsend or Alice In Chains, depending on what the band felt like the day they wrote it. And trust me, I realise that sounds awesome. But in execution, it lacks something significant. While as a whole the songs sound polished and slick – which is to their detriment in and of itself – transitions between thundering djent and lofty melody are sudden, awkward and ill-timed. Truly less than the sum of their parts, Textures just come across as a fusion of different derivative elements. I will say this, though – they have a better stage presence as a whole band than any other act over the entire day. Shame about the music.

The next band I attempt to see are Bossk, but it becomes clear that actually getting into the Eyesore stage is more trouble than it is worth and may involve stabbing a good number of people to actually move forward ten or so feet. If I was a less charitable man I might claim that this was down to a great number of local scene pricks hanging out by the bar and talking over the music in a pathetic attempt to accrue points for being there. But I am nothing if not charitable, so let's move on.

Gama Bomb

Gama Bomb take to the stage some time later, and it is clear that they have quite a following for a band halfway up the lineup. I can see why, too. Kind of. They play thrash metal on the punkier end of the spectrum, full of lyrics about zombies and evil and haha what a jolly lark it is to be in a metal band blah blah blah. Which I admit is probably very appealing if you're not me, and therefore crippled by cynicism and pretension. The band themselves are clearly as happy to play as the crowd are to hear them, and almost completely defuse any criticism I might make of them playing derivative mediocre material with a 'comedy' spin (the inverted commas are because to produce successful comedy, you need actual jokes and not just to write songs about daft things) by reading out amusing critiques of them - containing sentiments much the same as what I was thinking while watching - to the audience, and remaining pretty self-aware of their limitations throughout. So well played, Gama Bomb. I didn't particularly like you, but now feel like a bit of a dick for it. Well played.

Primordial

Next up on the main stage are Primordial, who are one of the only bands I have failed to research or listen to before arriving. Yes, I research these things. I'm not some bequiffed and tattooed wanker who thinks their cache as a critic is largely linked to how many bands they can get wasted with and whose copy is littered with basic factual errors about genre and sound. I am a proud unpaid professional and none of you are worthy of kissing my damn feet.

But I digress, slightly. Primordial. I had no idea what to expect, which may have been a contributing factor to how impressed I was. Which was very. Highly melodic blackened doom with sub-operatic vocals (that's a compliment, folks) performed like road-hardened veterans. Frontman Alan Averill – yeah, I've done my research now – herded and drove the crowd like a master, splattered with Jackson Pollock corpse paint and unafraid to bellow slightly ridiculous metal banter at the crowd without the slightest sense of irony. Galloping riffs underpinned by atmospheric breakdowns, all wolves and blood red stars and moonlight glinting off blades.

Lovely stuff.

My Dying Bride

So onto My Dying Bride, who I had not been particularly anticipating despite being a big fan. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because I have seen them a number of times before, perhaps because it has been 6 years since they released an album that really impressed me. Either way, by strolling onstage and giving the best performance of the day they left me pleasantly surprised. A newly-shorn Aaron looked like some kind of ascetic hermit as he stalked onstage and writhed around in torment to their definitive brand of gothic doom. I would hope the torment is pretty much faux, after all these years. Otherwise the poor lad must have an awful time of all these immortal unfulfilled desires and eternally lost hopes. Either way, My Dying Bride forced a wonderfully miserable setlist down our throats. Highlights included a three-in-a-row blinder of “Like Gods Of The Sun”, “To Remain Tombless” and “She Is The Dark” that was without a doubt the best twenty minutes I've had in quite some time. No sniggering at the back.

Pig Destroyer

Main stage headliners Electric Wizard emerged a short time later to a psychedelic backdrop and immense rolling feedback that gave way to monolithic riffage. They're quite heavy, quite slow and they like Black Sabbath a fair bit. Not much else needs to be said, really. Especially since I left their set about 15 minutes in (which means I only heard about one-tenth of a song) to go see Pig Destroyer headline the Terrorizer stage. The cerebral grindcore heroes were the main draw of the festival for me, so I arrived there in anticipation despite the lethargy of the teetotal festival-goer and my natural sense of almost complete contempt for everything. When they finally kicked off somewhat late, it quickly became apparent that the sound in the main crowd pit was pretty damn abysmal. So I moved to a higher balcony, where the sound was undoubtedly improved. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the problems with the set. While it sounded better up high, J.R. Hayes vocals were still a muffled croaking mush. I get that in grindcore that is kinda the standard anyway, but it came across as technical rather than stylistic. The band themselves seemed fairly nonplussed at being there, spending most of their time rocking back and forth on their feet and looking at each other. There was little to no crowd interaction, each song was bookended with about two minutes of either silence or keyboard/sampler noise and after the first ten minutes or so there was a noticeable steady bleed of audience members out from the room.

Quite a few of them wearing Pig Destroyer shirts, which is never a good sign.

I am actually still struggling to reconcile what I thought of this gig with the obvious violent bliss many were feeling down in the main pit. There was a veritable tsunami of bodies rolling back and forth down there, and I wonder if from my lofty physical and emotional perch I wasn't getting it. But all I can do is call 'em as I see 'em. And the band seemed as bored as the members of the audience who weren't kicking the shit out of each other. Once a long technical problem halfway through soaked up a lot of set time, the number of tunes that actually got played was pretty pathetic. After accounting for a late start, an early finish, a technical gap in the middle, an unwarranted departure for an encore and healthy amounts of absolute nothing inbetween two-minute long songs, I'd estimate that Pig Destroyer played between twenty and twenty-five minutes of music in a headlining set.

Not good enough. Nowhere near. Especially shortly after having seen Primordial and My Dying Bride, both of whom performed headline-quality sets in standard slots. All this and no “Mapplethorpe Grey” or “Carrion Fairy”. A big fat hefty 'meh' for the my main draw of the festival.

And yet I left feeling thoroughly satisfied. Overall, it represented a fucking solid day of extremely obnoxious music. Chalk another one up for the Damnationfest team. Bring on next year.

ATCB's Top 100 Albums Of The Bastard's Decade: 70-61 

Presenting the fourth installment in this ongoing, self-obsessed series. A Spotify playlist featuring all available recommended tracks is being built daily alongside the list, and can be found by clicking here.

70. Matinee Club – ‘The Modern’ (2009)

This band clearly have identity issues, since they have switched their name from The Modern to Matinee Club and back again. And named an LP ‘The Modern’ while recording as Matinee Club. These identity issues only stretch as far as naming conventions, however. Musically their wear their hearts on their sleeve, and those hearts are neon-lit and proudly synthpop. There’s a slick veneer of production and a more modern synth sound on this record that just about pulls it away from the 1980s, but the catchy tunes and dual male/female vocals mark it out as a direct 21^st century reply to acts from that decade. Relentlessly catchy and laden with infectious melodies, it’s bubblegum as hell but no less nourishing for it.

Recommended Tracks: “Industry”, “Sometimes”, “Suburban Culture”

69. Ryan Shirlow & The Bloody Marys – ‘Demonstrations’ (2005)

I always feel slightly odd including music made by my friends in lists like this – but since I have already stated that this list is personal and therefore inherently biased, there’s not much of a problem this time around. For a number of years, these York-based folk-punkers held a revolving lineup of musicians that specialised in wry black humour and urban disillusionment, lorded over by a forceful and charismatic vocal delivery. Sharing a house with Mr Shirlow led to continual exposure to the songs, but they never dulled despite this. Knowing people like The Bloody Marys is what led me to form the firm conclusion that quality in music has very little to do with how internationally renowned a band are. It sounds obvious now, to intelligent and cultured readers like you, but many young ‘uns have a certain contempt for local music and support acts that never quite goes away – little realising that this is where all bands start. This kicked off a whole thought process that led to my more or less complete disregard for music journalism and the music industry at large. And so here we are. People like Ryan Shirlow & The Bloody Marys have a lot to answer for.

Recommended Tracks: “Folk Song”, “In The Next Life I Think I’ll Talk To Girls”, “Into The Gloom”

68. Labrat – ‘Ruining It For Everyone’ (2002)

Ferocious and chaotic sludge dragged along screaming by a vocal performance that is equal parts demonic roar and tortured squeal, ‘Ruining It For Everyone’ manages to fuse relatively slow-to-medium paced guitar filth with an almost constantly rolling percussion. The result is an LP that can prove quite difficult to focus on, and a sense of impending utter chaos that never quite arrives. It’s an album that doubles as a mission statement, and that statement is that Labrat quite clearly do not give a fuck about anything other than making you spasm like a stunned bull.

Recommended Tracks: “Clint Eastwood Is Very Hard, Innit”, “Phuelled By Farmiceuticals”, “Two Pigs Fucking”

67. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – ‘Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope’ (2002)

A set of cybergrind brass knuckles straight to the gut, Agoraphobic Nosebleed spot weld 3,000mph dirty riffs to 12,000mph machine beats then spew screaming stream-of-consciousness offensiveness over the top of it. Whether or not an individual can get along with ‘Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope’ largely depends on whether you think that collapsing into a corner and giggling for hours while a burly, bearded man thrashes you with a tire iron would be a good way to spend an evening. Because that’s the closest comparison I can make to listening to this album. This album will shit on your floor then bellow for everyone to come and see what it has done. This album will nail your elbow to your knee then taunt you with a half-eaten hunk of meat studded with pills,  whooping with joy every time you fall over trying to get it into your mouth. This album will knock you over then sit on your chest for hours, staring blankly at the walls and occasionally hitting itself in the head with its hairy fists. This album has a track on it called “Hungry Homeless Handjob”, and that’s really all you need to know.

Recommended Tracks: “Kill Theme For American Apeshit”, “Ceremonial Gasmask”, “Grandmother With AIDS”

66. Thursday – ‘Full Collapse’ (2001)

One of my favourite topics when it comes to music journalism is useless genre tags, and post-hardcore is always a good one. Thursday are ‘post-hardcore’ (apparently, if you can actually define that let me know) but regardless of this they do a good job of penning melodic, bittersweet songs marked out by twinkling guitars and Geoff Rickly’s soaring voice. Sometimes the components of a particular band’s sound synchronise and produce an album that is better than the sum of its parts – ‘Full Collapse’ is a prime example of this. It’s not that I dislike the rest of their output, but there is something to this album beyond the sound coming out of the speakers. It hits the zeitgeist of the early 2000s perfectly, switching capably between jagged alt. rock punch and a softer yearning.

Recommended Tracks: “Understanding In A Car Crash”, “Concealer”, “Standing On The Edge Of Summer”

65. Shooting At Unarmed Men – ‘Yes! Tinnitus!’ (2006)

Jon Chapple (formerly of Welsh bile merchants mclusky) leads a merry group of musicians on a dissonant journey into surreal lyrics, alternately moaning and screaming vocals and an overwhelming sense of bitter apathy. It’s much more fun than it sounds. Really. Some tracks veer towards a grunge/alt. indie sound but really ‘Yes! Tinnitus” is far too idiosyncratic to pigeonhole. Amusing and disturbing by turns, this album also contains the song “All Hail Sergio”, which is globally renowned for having donated one of its lyrics to naming this site.

Recommended Tracks: “All Hail Sergio”, “Girls Music”,”In-Flight Instructions Are A Joke, Say I”

64. Red Stars Parade – ‘Disko’ (2005)

A swaying behemoth awash with stomping riffs and carefully hidden melody, ‘Disko’ is also a slowly swelling amorphous monster. The songs don’t so much build as grow organically until you come to the realisation that there is so much more going on in these seemingly simple hard metal constructions than you thought. Standout track “Ruin Vegas” displays this better than any other, a Will Haven-esque underwater carcrash with a howling vocal line that never quite covers the stabbing lead guitar pulling away from the mix and spreading its wings. It’s the closest the album comes to a single, and most of the remainder of the album is covered with a spreading thunderstorm that drills you down with atmosphere and instinct.

Recommended Tracks: “Ruin Vegas”, “World's Greatest Tiger Trainer”, “Zemanova”

63. Meshuggah – ‘Nothing’ (2002)

It’s sometimes difficult to pick favourites between releases – do you pick the album that makes more sense as an articulate collection of music and can be played end to end without a dip in quality, or do you pick the album that is less consistent but has some stunning standout tracks? In the case of ‘Nothing’, I have firmly gone for the former. Held up against the likes of other Meshuggah albums such as ‘Chaosphere’ and ‘obZen’, it lacks in terms of songs that jerk out of the speakers in crazed metal time signatures and pull you back to some weird Swedish dimension. But it more than makes up for that with a strong identity for the LP as a whole, which acts as a giant spiked wheel that rolls onwards, crushing any sense of regular 4/4 time that you might be clinging on to like a baby monkey. Robotically delivered growls somehow synch up with polyrhythms that are delivered like angry judgements from a crazed elder god – Meshuggah produce music as difficult to describe as it is to play, but “Nothing” may be the closest they have come so far to coherency in mood if not in sound.

Recommended Tracks: “Rational Gaze”, “Straws Pulled At Random”, “Spasm”

62. Pig Destroyer – ‘Terrifyer’ (2004)

A second entry today for Scott Hull (also of Agoraphobic Nosebleed), but while both bands could be termed grindcore there is little else they have in common. Where AgNb flourish on relentless assault and mindless offense, Pig Destroyer keep their efforts firmly focused on the finely-tuned lightning guitar strikes and the morbid poetry of their lyrics. Vocalist J.R. Hayes weaves dark spiderwebs in his tales of lust, obsession and despair that belie the brute power of the music behind it, a power even more remarkable on realising it comes from a three-piece band armed with only two instruments. ‘Terrifyer’ is slightly more comfortable listening than previous releases (musically, at least) and has a talent for flaying the listener with one particularly sublime and sharp riff before upping the ante and reinventing a song with an even better one. Then another. Then another. By that time the track is probably nearing two minutes long and therefore past its sell-by date. So Pig Destroyer cast it aside and start all over again, until you know nothing but scars, gravestones and old dead soil.

Recommended Tracks: “Thumbsucker”, “Gravedancer”, “Carrion Fairy”

61. Fuck Buttons – ‘Tarot Sport’ (2009)

Previous installments of this list have led to me being termed a hipster by friends. This entry isn’t going to help my arguments against that accusation. I saw Fuck Buttons live a couple of years ago, and the audience was almost precisely 50/50 hipster vs. neckbeard. If only it had actually been settled in some kind of mass brawl, a more even dynamic might have been reached. ‘Tarot Sport’ builds on the electronic drone introduced by Fuck Buttons on their 2008 debut ‘Street Horrrsing’ and softens it a great deal, while introducing less dissonant sounds, samples and a higher sense of melody – though said melody is no less slow in its build. It’s a sign of good songwriting when you can piece together a ten minute track like “Surf Solar” from relatively repetitive and limited components and still make the listener feel like they have only spent two minutes listening to its upbeat burbles and synthlines. As noted before, there are many challenging albums on this list – this is one of them, but possibly also the most friendly.

Recommended Tracks: “Surf Solar”, “The Lisbon Maru”, “Olympians”