The road to recovery from Damnation Festival 2026 may be a long one, but at least it’s only 358 days until next year’s. You can read the Saturday Review here.
Damnation Festival 2026
BEC Arena, Manchester – 7/8 November 2026
Words: Paul Hutchings and Lucy Dunnet
Photography: Paul Hutchings
Before closing out the weekend with a slew of Black Metal majesty in the form of Satyricon and Wolves in the Throne Room, Metalcore veterans Walls Of Jericho kick in some teeth, French absurdists Igorrr alter brain chemistry, and German-Ukrainian phenomenon Machukha make sure no one – including 2 Promoters, 1 Pod stars Gavin McInally and James Scarlett – are ever the same again.
Before we collapse in a heap of mourning at how many days it is until Damnation Festival 2027, let’s recap the 2026 Day Two highlights.
Swamp Coffin – Meliora Software Stage
Swamp Coffin are becoming the masters of opening a festival, like in August when they kicked off ArcTanGent with their sonic brand of swampy sludge.
For a band from Rotherham, their music could not be more representative. Dour, miserable, but with a cheeky grin and wink as it kicks you in the nuts.
And then we get to their now infamous World’s slowest Wall Of Death. As ridiculous as it sounds, it works a treat, and when Jon Rhodes shouts out that it’s time for those on the accessibility platform to shine and get in the pit, you know Sunday has started just perfectly. (PH)
Hippotraktor – Lou’s Brews Stage
Stefan de Graef arrives on stage in a whirl of spinning arms and endearingly disjointed movements. The Hippotraktor vocalist sure knows how to grace a place with his presence.
The Belgians pierce the morning Damnation Festival air with crisp harmonies and a serene ambience that is only slightly damaged by the recurring clipping coming from issues with the sound desk.
“Nothing wrong with our touring gear… shit happens though,” Stefan remarked on Damnation’s Facebook forum, in a post that all but unanimously agreed that even some sound malfunctions could not take away from the brilliance of Hippotraktor’s performance.
The grey architectural visuals filling the stage sit somewhere between brutalism and minimalism, a straddling of aesthetics that their Progressive, Post-Metal also leans into.
Soft-touch moments of ethereality bleed into harsher explosions of abrasive roars and dense riffing, which is all too enjoyable on tracks like Stasis, but also their new material from their devastating album Annihilist (not A Nihilist) released just a month prior. (LD)
Mastiff – Cult Never Dies Stage
“If you’ve seen us before, we’re horrible, and you know it,” grunts Mastiff vocalist Jim Hodge. “If you haven’t seen us before, we’re still horrible, and you don’t know it.”
The miserable bastards from Hull have a gnarly black-and-white video of maggots flickering behind them for the duration of their brutish set, which is taking place on the upgraded Cult Never Dies Stage due to Eyes And Lik having had to pull out of the fest at the last minute.
While this means they now have a barrier to deal with, it does not stop Jim from waving his hands at security and roaring, “Make these fuckers work!”
Mastiff are like a blunt, beefy axe swung with abandon. Their fuzzed-up, sludge-drenched Extreme Metal decimates with the brutality of Hardcore but the guttural sucker punch of something less human, more beast.
They may have coined themselves “a miserable band from a miserable city”, but they blast through a range of emotions onstage, from eliciting giggles when they have a false start for Decimated Graves, “tricked ya!” To A Story Behind Every Light, which Jim dedicates to his little girl who saved his fucking life.
Then there is the small matter of Harry Nott from Burner joining them on stage for Serrated, which is, unsurprisingly, a mind fuck of filthy intensity and sets off an explosion in the crowd.
Much like Jim never getting used to the nerves before going on stage and nearly spewing, we will never get used to the bruising brilliance of Hull’s best export. (LD)
Ultha – Lou’s Brews Stage
Existential dread. Anguish. A maelstrom of terror under a diminishing light. Ultha are here to take Damnation Festival down a long, dark road that veers away from Black Metal’s traditional anti-religious scriptures and crashes straight through a far more daunting wall of imagery: the nightmares of internal struggle.
Bathed in red light so concentrated it all but reeks of evil, the Germans mesh tormented wails with darkwave synths and rhythms that pulsate between hysterical and dragging.
There is also something moody about Ultha, and not just because vocalist and bassist Chris Noir is wearing a Type O Negative T-shirt. The tension building, the goth rock elements, Ultha may hypnotise the main stage into another realm, but try dimming the lights and listening to them under the sheets later. (LD)
Medulla Nocte – Cult Never Dies Stage
Ross-on-Wye may not be your typical hotbed of Hardcore and Thrash, but in the ’90s Medulla Nocte were amongst the leading UK acts.
Vocalist Paul Catten became an underground legend, and with the band reforming for 2026, it is incredible to see the packed room reliving their youth. Catten is the man, and there is an incredible vibe as the band blast through old classics.
Those who were there sing along as Catten jumps to the barrier, whilst those curious about the legend are soon engaged in ferocious pit action.
Photographer Tim Finch from The Razor’s Edge has a photo of Catten on the singer’s recently released book, and Tim is singing along as he shoots. Always a great sign. (PH)
Benediction – Lou’s Brews Stage
If Carcass showed Saturday that Death Metal still has a place at Damnation Festival, Birmingham’s Granddaddies Benediction roll back the years with a levelling set of the real old school.
Dave Ingram’s sad departure due to arthritis in May was a reminder that age is catching up with us all. Thankfully, Kam Lee steps in and is later confirmed as the man who will take on full mic duties for the band. He performs well, noting that in all the time in his many other bands, including Massacre, he never got to play this stage.
Well, at 60 years old, he tells us he has made it and leads the band through a stellar set of gnarly OSDM classics. Dual guitarists Darren Brookes and Peter Rew look like they are having great fun as they rip out riffs to Engines Of War, Stormcrow and Magnificat.
Closing out with The Dreams You Dread, Benediction, like Carcass, remain defiant and will be around for some time to come yet. (PH)
Machukha – Meliora Software Stage
“I have survived Machukha,” say the stickers at Machukha’s merch stand, for which there is a winding queue not just directly after their set, but over an hour later. Just one of the many signs of the world-upending intensity and impact of their performance on this year’s Damnation Festival attendees.
The German-Ukrainian Post-Black Metal band transfix every sinuous fibre of your being and leave you breathless from journeying through emotional waters that churn with a severity beyond what most can bear. It is a live experience so scorching, so utterly devastating, that more than a few people end up in tears, feeling a bit sick, or in need of a shaky hug.
Today is the only date on their UK tour where Machukha are playing their debut album, Mochari, in full, and perhaps ever again. Each song is so intricately linked that splitting them apart is akin to splitting themselves apart. Or, less gruesomely, chopping up a script and attempting to put on a Frankenstein-esque performance of different plays.
There are moments in the darkness where all you can hear is guitarist Bláthin’s choked crying sounds and glimpse the writhing shadow of singer Natalya.
Or where Mykola Lebed is playing the saxophone with a mournful tremor, an instrument they only added when evolving the album live.
It is the final clawing at calm before Natalya’s acerbic shrieks and blast beats from drummer Leva Judith explode through the shivering atmosphere like the shattering of a thousand mirrors. Feelings of fear shrivel into unexplained grief that turn into enraged empathy and anxiety for what havoc Machukha will wreak on your now ripped-open chest cavity next.
If you had the misfortune of missing Machukha this time round, stalk them to within an inch of your life to see when they are playing next.
Do. Not. Miss. Them. Again. (LD)
Final Dose – Cult Never Dies Stage
Black Metal combined with a punk attitude is one way Final Dose have been described. The gnarly London outfit’s lyrical content may be about the darker side of life, but they can put a smile on your face with their sheer energy.
Bruno Fusco is a menacing frontman in his hangman’s hood. His guttural snarls emit from what must be one of the sweatiest places over the entire weekend.
It may be chilly in the food court, but onstage Final Dose’s blood-red-drenched lighting does nothing but raise the temperature. Another inspired booking, another new band ticked off the list. (PH)
Walls Of Jericho – Lou’s Brews Stage
“We’re here for one damn reason. To have a good fucking time,” yells Candace Buckingham with the fattest grin on her face. The Walls Of Jericho vocalist also has one of the loudest roars of the weekend, and for anyone who did not get the memo, the main stage is about to turn into a go-hard and break-stuff arena.
For some Damnation Festival attendees, this means “too many ninjas” in the pit, but this does not stop them from opening up their own push pit mashed onto the top of the spin kicks.
This is what turning all that “fucking hate out there into love in here” looks like. A Little Piece Of Me and A Trigger Full Of Promises go way too hard, with Thrash riffs and breakdowns getting shoved into every orifice.
Then it’s a big middle fingers up for The American Dream. Fuck fuck fuck that was immense. (LD)
Groza – Cult Never Dies Stage
For many, Groza were the band of the weekend at Fortress Festival in May. Mysterious and hooded, they immediately resemble Portugal’s Gaerea.
But these guys are from Bavaria, play a different type of music and are just as compelling. In over 40 minutes, Groza prove to be simply outstanding. Dry ice swirls, the lighting bathes the stage in classic blues and reds, and the music is nasty. Deliciously so. (PH)
Triptykon – Lou’s Brews Stage
Indoors, in the dark, Triptykon are something else. They play an almost exclusively Celtic Frost set, but also slip in a glorious Messiah, the first song Thomas Gabriel Fischer, aka Tom Gabriel Warrior, ever wrote with Martin Eric Ain in Hellhammer.
Then there is an opening salvo of delight in Procreation (Of The Wicked), Circle Of The Tyrants and Into The Crypts Of Rays. Plenty of “ughs” come from the packed audience, prompting Warrior to dryly comment, “It’s not exactly Beethoven, is it?”
Just his presence is immense. He may be older, but there is a gravitas that the man and his band command. The only wry smiles come from Mr Warrior. Dark stares from Victor “V. Santura” Bullok and bassist Vanja Slajh.
And then we get A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh from 2006’s Montheist. Another jaw-dropping performance at this incredible festival. (PH)
Igorrr – Lou’s Brews Stage
Fractured, surrealist, brutal slabs of music that would just as easily charm a snake as it would terrorise a 17th-century tea party. This is multi-instrumentalist Gautier Serre’s avant-garde extreme Metal project, Igorrr, who seduce Damnation Festival with a brain-chemistry-altering performance. And lots of muscled back shots of drummer Rémi Serafino. Whoever was in charge of the screens, you are owed a thanks.
From sitars, blast beats, and Middle Eastern percussion, to crunchy gutturals, operatic wails, and glitchy synths, the kaleidoscope of colour Gautier has created is villainously exciting, and there is not a single predictable second in Igorrr’s set.
New mezzo-soprano vocalist Gerda Iguchi is darkly mesmerising with blacked-out contacts, erratic dance moves and a voice that could summon creatures even more demonic-looking than her co-vocalist JB Le Bail.
This is opera for Metalheads at a masquerade ball in hell. And it’s ridiculously good. (LD)
Weekend Nachos – Cult Never Dies Stage
The promise of power-violence sees the second stage close to capacity as the chaos of Weekend Nachos explodes.
Within minutes, frontman John Hoffman is off the stage and onto the barrier, urging carnage in the pit, which responds with far more energy than should be present at this time on day two of a festival.
Hoffman mocks the large pit, “Who they got playing here, Tori Amos?” he asks before diving off stage and back to the barrier once more.
The pit crew are on red alert, but there are few surfers, although the hardcore fans are screaming the lyrics into Hoffman’s mic. It is exactly as promised, and the band’s long-awaited return to the UK makes for compelling viewing, if only from a safe distance for a lot of us. (PH)
Satyricon – Lou’s Brews Stage
Make sure your hair is down. It is time to headbang with Satyricon to celebrate their final show of 2026.
The Norwegian Black Metallers’ steady chug of icy riffs and raspy drawls is made all the more formidable by the backdrop behind them, which, at first glance, is a moving depiction of a medieval tapestry.
But closer inspection shows limbs hanging off plants, torture scenes, and a huge monster with a gaping black hole in the middle of its face, or is it its chest. Either way, it is diabolical, and all too befitting of the band’s hunching Black Metal majesty.
Black Crow On A Tombstone and anthem K.I.N.G. are always going to be fist-pumping highlights in a Satyricon set, and go down a pleasurable treat tonight.
Where they are a bit too quiet and slow for some, for others, Satyricon are the perfect grim goodbye to what has been a damn good weekend in Manchester. (LD)
Wolves In The Throne Room – Cult Never Dies Stage
Who would have guessed that the final set of the weekend would also be the best smelling. With ritualistic candles decorating the stage, Wolves In The Throne Room begin their set with an incense cleansing of the stage.
A cleansing that somehow wafts through the entire Cult Never Dies crowd and lingers on even after the lights have been switched on.
Such a ritual makes perfect sense for a band whose haunting riffs and torrential blast beats cause a trance-like effect on all who venture near their dark, ancestral altar.
Thunderstorm sound bites mix with eerie wails and Nathan Weaver’s fiendish shrieks in an escalation of something wondrous and unholy.
Winter is dying, the sun is returning, and Wolves In The Throne Room are leaving throngs of hypnotised worshippers in their wake. (LD)
Attention now turns to Damnation Festival 2027, which returns to Manchester’s BEC Arena on 6–7 November with Zeal & Ardor announced as the first headliner.
Reunited Black Breath and returning The Red Chord join the opening line-up, alongside Bell Witch performing Mirror Reaper in full for its tenth anniversary and Pestilence delivering an exclusive old-school set. Panopticon, Lamp Of Murmuur, Cult Leader, Unsane and Rome are also confirmed, with early bird tickets on sale now.
