Fuming mouth are a dark twisted entity slamming together sludge and doom and then shoving it into a blender with a big handful of unrepentant crust punk. They crackle with raw energy and hum with disenfranchised righteous anger.  Their riffs brim with bile and belligerence and it has an unconformity to it that feels refreshing and different. It's like they know the rules of metal but have decided that they don't quite apply to them. Instead, they are using it well-worn clichés to tread a different path and that sense of individualistic endeavour shines through.

Across the divide/void Hangman's Chair are also spicing up doom and dragging it unwillingly in a totally different direction. Like all current metal auteurs, they are French and there is a real swagger and confidence in the delivery. As opposed to Fuming Mouth’s disparate miserabilism, Hangman's Chair take a much upbeat and optimistic path. It is doom but it is doom with a dash of showbiz pizzazz. Put simply, it is doom designed for a sunny day and God forbid, a cheerful disposition. It still has a distinctly off kilter feel but there are definitely swipes of commercialism and a clever understanding of songwriting protocols. There may even be a couple of songs that you could hum.

Let’s cut to the chase Nails are as close to impenetrable as you can get before you descend into pure unadulterated noise. They exist at the very fringes of what can be described as music and carve a path that is singular and undefinable. Balance all that then with the fact that when they hit the stage at exactly 6.00 PM the main room is the fullest that it gets all weekend. Everyone is here to witness the return of certainly the most incendiary and gnarly band to ever graced a Damnation stage. Their set in 2017 has now passed into folklore purely on the level of carnage that it created. It is spoken about in reverential whispers and the mass gathering this evening is most certainly partially as a direct response to those legends. Luckily Nails don't just live up to the hype they take it round the corner and give it an absolute kicking.

They are sensational. Only Todd Jones remains from the last time they visited this country, but he has expertly picked musical brethren who more than ably live up to what has gone before. For 45 minutes it is a blur of white noise. Energy just courses off the stage and each track is dispensed like it’s a hot potato that needs to be regurgitated as quickly as possible. It is a cacophony of cascading clatter but somehow it manages to have a holding rhythm that completely hooks you as a listener. There may be very little in the way of recognisable melodic conformity, but you just can't help be swept away by the sheer ferocity and pulsating power.

The floor becomes a gargantuan mess of thrusting limbs and fallen comrades. The bodies fly like confetti and there is a never ending human tsunami propelling itself over the barrier. Those not participating in the mayhem just stand back and watch as the masses cavort in throbbing waves. After having tried to describe it feels a bit dismissive to use the term indescribable but that is exactly what it is. Their set feels alien and at a direct right angle to anything else we may have witnessed. it is like a nuclear reactor going supernova and it is instantly recognisable that they have surpassed what came before and for a second time have firmly written themselves into Damnation history.

There is a general "after the Lord Mayor's Parade" about anything that comes after that Nails set, however Dool managed to perfectly fit the occasion by not only sounding nothing like what has come before but frankly like nothing else you will come across this weekend. They bring the glam, they bring the pizzazz and probably most out of kilter with the rest of the festival they bring the funk. There is an air of a resurrected T-Rex but repurposed for the 21st century. This is not a term used much at Damnation, but they are eminently danceable and their spot on cover of ‘Love Like Blood’ does indeed get them boogieing in the aisles. They are also frivolous fun and that feels especially welcome after the apocalyptic nihilism of Nails. Another absolutely splendid spot and acquisition by our Gav.

Over at the Holy Goat Brewing stage, Memoriam are holding up the end for us older folk. As the legend that is Karl Willetts honestly inflects when we speak to him later, Memoriam started happening because Bolthrower stopped happening. But rather than become a hackneyed cover act trading on a legacy, they have made the decision to create their own mythology. Five albums in seven years means that they have a vibrant foundation on which to build on. We get tracks from all of their releases and as Karl regularly declares there is something wonderfully soul enriching about celebrating the life affirming joy of death metal. This is very much death metal as it was intended to be played. Sharp, insightful and blatantly political. You can see the lineage tracing straight back to yesterday's "Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing" and that realisation that death metal was always meant to be a positive force for change. A muscular performance that proves the veterans still have something pretty special to bring to the party.

Whereas everybody and their dog (if they had been allowed on site) wanted in on Nails, Bleeding Through prove to be a lot more selective experience. There is a healthy contingent upfront who are having the time of their lives. They are scissor kicking, crowd surfing and generally slamming like it's all going out of fashion. This section of the crowd contains faces framed in euphoric joy as they sing along to tracks like ‘Love Lost In A Hail Of Gun Fire’ and ‘Shadow Walker’. This is the nostalgic slight return that they never knew they needed and is currently nourishing their very being.

However, beyond the pit in a slightly different story. Firstly, the sound is murky and for those of us who are less au fait with ‘This Is Love, This Is Murderous’ it is much harder to engage with the tracks as everything feels like it blurs into one. Secondly for all the garlands thrown at Gav for securing this highly exclusive appearance, early noughties metalcore still has a select appeal within a festival of select appeal. For those who were there at the time it is akin to the second coming but for the fraternities who weren't there or didn't get on the metalcore hype train it is slightly harder to get what all the fuss is about.

In many ways our Gavin didn't really need to book any other band aside from Inter Arma as they intersect and traverse so many different genres on their lonesome. There are great valleys of jagged hardcore within their sound but they also managed to drag in death metal and snag a good chunk of Lamb of God style groove. In fact as soon as you have got your head round what they're doing, they have stopped doing it and moved into a different style. To master so many contrasting musical moulds takes a huge amount of ability and one of the constants of Inter Arma is the exemplary level of musicianship. T.J. Childers drumming is insane. He elects not to follow rudimental form and simply provide the rhythm, instead his beats are high up in the mix and providing as much muscle memory as the guitars. An astonishingly good, guided tour around frankly everything that can be filed under extreme metal.

The expectation around this rare appearance by The Ruins of Beverast (this is only their third appearance in this country) is frankly astonishing. Their sixth record, "The Thule Grimoires" appeared towards the tail end of Covid and frankly blew everybody away. It diligently collided doom and black metal to create something that stretched beyond both of those genres. It was fierce but it was also heavily atmospheric and emotionally charged. Like a number of other acts over the weekend, The Ruins of Beverast is a one-person project expanded especially for life commitments. Band leader Alexander von Meilenwald is a forbearing presence. He looms over his microphone with malicious intent and bellows into it with heartfelt sorrow. There is a bewitching darkness to the music that they weave. The heaviness is intersected with a fragile beauty that takes it far beyond communal garden black metal. It sweeps you away in a blustery tempest of heightened emotion and is quite hard to fathom how black or even doom metal can produce this many feels.

For all its extremities Damnation has always provided a resting place for the big names in post rock/metal. Mono, Nordic Giants, Cult of Luna, And So I watch You From Afar and This Will Destroy You have all over the last 19 years passed through its gates. Chicago instrumentalists Russian circles have always been conspicuous by their absence which makes this long overdue appearance even more special. They are everything we would have wished for and more. Whereas a lot of the day has been about haste and in your face energy, Russian circles dial everything back and take meticulous time to allow their music to unfold.

The riffs slowly emerge like delicate buds opening up to the world for the first time. Each riff that is set free hangs in the air, echoing around the auditorium still bristling with endless possibility. It is like watching a musical world be sculpted in front of you. The time signatures twist and manipulate themselves in front of you, astonishing in both their elegance and also their endurance. As one of those shows where you just sit back and let it all wave over you in its opulent glory. We have waited a long time for this but it is worth every second.

Talking about waiting, Ahab's appearance this evening is 12 months overdue. They were a late casualty last year so there is an aura of expectation swilling around the room. They do suffer from clashing with Dragged Into Sunlight whose equal level of rarity makes them, for the majority of punters, the bigger draw. It is not a disappointing turnout, but it certainly doesn't equate to the standing they hold as one of the leading lights in the funeral doom movement.

If Russian circles were slow then Ahab are glacial. Everything happens as a pensive snail's pace. It feels like they are diligently and forensically unwrapping each note and then laboriously allowing it to exit the stage at its own sluggish pace. There is a beauty to this unhurried and lingering approach. Because it takes so long for each musical components to gestate you have plenty of time to be enthralled and then ensnared by it. Everything is exquisitely contoured and created and whilst there are traces of heaviness nothing actually feels foreboding or evil. Wondrous but I expect next time they wouldn't want to put up against the most highly anticipated set of evening.

Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. It is five years since Dragged Into Sunlight last played anywhere and they haven't released a proper album in over a decade. In fact rumours of their demise were rife. Yet somehow they have been encouraged from their caves and hovels to play their debut album, "Hatred For Mankind", in its entirety. A large proportion of the crowd jettison themselves from Russian circles early to book their berth at the front of the stage. The placing of their signature candelabra receives a response that most headline acts would trade their grandmas for. By the time we reach showtime the only way into the Holy Goat Brewing bring stage is by using a crowbar. 

This is one of those instances where the hype and the expectation is completely just. The staging is divine. Two TV screens on either side of the stage flash up increasingly disturbing images whilst the performance area itself pulsates with supernova lights and billowing smoke. The band are as anonymous and removed as ever. Ominous cloaks are worn and they take their usual positions facing away from the crowd and directly towards their monstrous amps structures. Whilst we know what they are going to play as they are doing an album set nobody is actually quite prepared for the monumental power that gushes forth from the stage. The songs, if they can be called something as mundane as that, may well be familiar but the very act of their creation is just utterly utterly astonishing.

It really is unlike anything else and that's within the context of the festival where we have had a number of unique and highly distinctive performances. The smoke becomes thicker and thicker as their set proceeds and towards the end the band members disappear completely enveloped by an oncoming darkness that matches the desolate nature of the sound that they belch fourth. To call it extraordinary actually downplays the term. It is a revelationary experience that moves beyond mere gig and into another realm of sensory overload. Five years of pensive energy is dispelled in the chthonic and mesmerising hour. Mind blowing completely mind blowing.

It is at this point that a good proportion of attendees decide that they have witnessed their set of evening and it's time to begin their long journey home. The cavernous confines of the Pins and Knuckles stage doesn't exactly empty but there is definitely now room to do some serious swinging with a whole host of willing cats. The inclusion of Cradle Of Filth as headliner was from the moment it was announced controversial and divisive. Those who regard them as a bit of embarrassment have voted with their feet leaving behind a zealous and rabid crowd who adore their every movement. You see the most astonishing thing is that the reaction greeting Dani filth and friends ascension onto stage is biblical in its level of evangelistic devotion.

Beatlemania level screeching and wailing is not something you expect at Damnation but it's here incarnate, as Dani filth's apostles beseech his every utterance and move. It is easy to forget that whilst many of us openly mock Cradle Of Filth there is also a fevered fan base who are completely besotted. By removing the prejudices, it actually quite easy to deduce why after 30 years they still court such a frenzied and passionate response. You see they are pure heavy metal pantomime shawn of any pretention of pretentiousness. It is over the top, opulent, highly eccentric and it not only knows this but revels in all three of those principles.

They put on a show and if you go with the flow it is gorgeously entertaining. Dani filth embraces the silliness of the whole thing and actually comes across as witty and affably genuine. As promised and foretold by both the band and Gav, we get a thoroughly old school set. They completely divert from the set list of the current UK tour and instead concentrate exclusively on their first four albums and two EP's. Everything is from their first decade of existence and the congregation down the front are absolutely lapping up the reappearance of tracks like ‘Scorched Earth Erotica’, ‘Malice Through The Looking Glass’ and opener ‘Heaven Torn Asunder’.

We get flames, we get skeletons, we get multilayered platforms for plenty of running about and we get lots and lots of lustful interaction. It may well be a distinct apposition to the claustrophobic nihilism that has been in display earlier on, but it provides a wonderfully and emphatically enjoyable end to the evening. Yes it's Nails, Dragged Into Sunlight and 200 Stab Wounds who will be talking about for decades to come but we need to give Cradle Of Filth their dues as they manage to be rather rather awesome.

And that's damnation 2024 done and dusted. The organisers always positioned it as a make or break event. The gods of extreme metal have smiled kindly on them and Damnation 2024 has turned out to be a rip-roaring unmitigated success. Somehow Gav and Paul and everybody else involved managed to turn a heartless industrial warehouse into an extreme metal paradise. Somehow they managed to transform a large-scale event into something that felt incredibly personal and intimate. Even at eight pound a pint you didn't feel like you are being fleeced because the beer is exceptionally good, in fact everything is exceptionally good. Damnation ‘24 proved that if you have the right relationship with your attendees and if you treat them as fellow fans as opposed to commodities then they will reward your honesty. Over 1500 tickets have now been shifted blind for next year’s double sized 20th birthday edition. Damnation has now fortified itself as the large venue event with a boutique sensibility and Leeds University, Hell Jilly's rock world feel along long way away.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Cradle Of FIlth + Dragged Into Sunlight + Ahab + Russian Circles + The Ruins of Beverast + Inter Arma + Bleeding Through + Memoriam + Dool + Nails + Hangman’s Chair + Fuming Mouth