In an increasingly beige world, it’s awesome to see truly extreme music breaking new ground. Damnation Festival’s move, last year, from its long-term home at Leeds University Union down the M62 to the massive Bowlers Exhibition Centre in Salford, felt like a bold statement of intent. But in 2023 the UK’s premier autumnal metal gathering celebrated its 18th birthday by doubling down: expanding the once-humble pre-show A Night Of Salvation into a three-stage behemoth in its own right and proceeding to fill out the massive space again with thousands of punters clutching two-pint steins – and the kind of skull-rattling sets you simply don’t get anywhere else.
The most brilliant thing about Damnation, though, is that there is no boredom. Despite drawing its line-up from the shadiest depths of the underground, organisers Gavin McInally and Paul Farrington invariably curate an experience that runs from the delicate, emotionally-wrenching post-rock of acts like Nordic Giants, Maybeshewill and Julie Christmas via the deep stoner grooves of OHHMS and headliners Electric Wizard to the pit-spinning mania of rising death metal supremos Unearth and resurgent metalcore heroes Unearth.
There were more than a few broken bodies after this year’s mammoth 32-hour stretch between first band and last, but now that we’ve managed to straighten our banged-out necks a little, and the tinnitus has begun to subside, K! presents our blood-and-beer-stained retrospective of the heaviest weekend of the year...