After fourteen years, Desertfest has become a staple in the calendar of any doom, stoner psych or sludge fan that is worth their salt. It is a yearly pilgrimage to the grimy lanes of Camden, diving between some of the most hallowed halls the scene has to offer. You can read all this years Desertfest coverage at metaltalk.net/tag/desertfest-2026.
Desertfest 2026 – Friday, 15 May 2026
Words: Ash Nash and Rhiannon Ellis
Photography: Ash Nash / Tim Bugbee / Sam Huddleston
From the cramped quarters of the beloved dive bar that is The Dev, the gloomy goth interiors of The Black Heart, to the cavernous Electric Ballroom, audiences are spoiled for choice, leaving even the most sullen doom-heads grinning like kids at Christmas.
This year, Friday was no different, with a mix of industry titans and plucky newcomers littering the line-up. We were in for a treat.
Sergeant Thunderhoof – Electric Ballroom
Some bands just fit Desertfest perfectly, and Sergeant Thunderhoof is one of them. They stepped onto the Electric Ballroom stage as last-minute replacements for Rubber Snake Charmers, but any pressure quickly disappeared. Within minutes, the crowd was completely drawn into Sergeant Thunderhoof’s world.
Since forming in Bath in 2013, the band has earned a reputation as one of the UK underground’s most immersive heavy acts. They mix psychedelic groove rock, doom heaviness, and progressive touches into a sound that feels massive but still warm.
Live, their songs grew even bigger, filling the Ballroom with fuzz, hypnotic grooves, and long passages that seemed made for Desertfest fans.
The set stood out because of its patience. Sergeant Thunderhoof took their time, letting riffs slowly build through smoke and echo before hitting with full force. The atmosphere pulled the crowd in deeper with every groove, as the band balanced heavy moments with real psychedelic beauty.
The guitar work was impressive, shifting easily from soaring leads to thick, fuzzy distortion. The rhythm section kept things grounded with deep grooves that shook the floor. Even during longer, progressive parts, nothing felt overdone. Every part fit the mood, and the audience stayed engaged the whole time.
When the final notes faded in the hazy Ballroom, Sergeant Thunderhoof had done more than just open the day. They felt like one of the standout bands, showing that Desertfest is still about those moments when a band steps up and completely takes over the room. (Ash Nash).
Witchsorrow – The Underworld
The Underworld has always felt like sacred ground for doom metal, and Witchsorrow turned it into a cathedral of riffs. Beneath Camden’s sweat-soaked ceiling, the band delivered a set so crushing it felt less like a gig and more like being slowly buried beneath amplifiers.
For well over a decade now, Witchsorrow have stood as torchbearers for traditional British doom, pulling from the monolithic weight of Sabbath, Cathedral, and Saint Vitus while sharpening it into something bleaker and far more menacing.
Live, those slow-moving riffs hit with overwhelming force, every note dragging across the venue like collapsing concrete.
What made the set so hypnotic was its complete refusal to rush. Witchsorrow understand that true doom lives in tension, in the spaces between riffs, in the suffocating crawl before the next seismic groove lands. Smoke hung thick beneath the lights as the room moved in slow motion, swallowed whole by fuzz and distortion.
By the end, feedback still rang through The Underworld long after the band had left the stage, leaving the crowd dazed, drenched in sweat, and completely consumed by doom. (Ash Nash).
Praetorian – The Black Heart
In an already sweltering Black Heart, Praetorian waste no time on false pretences. The crowd’s rumbling barely has time to echo before it’s obliterated by the merciless opening riffs of Fear And Loathing in Stevenage.
Blink, and you’ll miss it, Tom Clements, now shirtless, launches himself headlong into the unsuspecting crowd before anyone can so much as shelter their pint. For the uninitiated, it’s a baptism by fire, many of whom clearly had not anticipated the level of unadulterated physical intimidation built into Praetorian’s performance.
One poor punter at the front gets a full pint shower for his trouble. Consider it the entry fee for top-tier sludge.
Praetorian operate with the kind of ruthless, telepathic malice that can only be found in a band forged in the fires of the underground. Mark Wilkie’s guitar is pure filth, pinning the room to the wall with distortion that could strip paint.
Richard Stevenson’s bass is all grit and menace, except, of course, when he is being roasted by his own frontman as the ‘Sparkling Water Wanker’ for bemoaning bringing bubbles to the stage instead of still. “The worst!” We’ve all been there.
Yet, the second the music kicks in, any trace of this amiable persona vanishes, Clements is entirely possessed. He careens through the crowd like a heat-seeking missile, powered by some deranged, external force, moving as if compelled.
He pauses only to stare vacantly into the void, as if grappling with some inner turmoil or crumple entirely against the venue’s sweat-slicked walls before only to be scooped into hearty bear-hugs by beaming onlookers.
Praetorian’s particularly dark-humoured brand of blackened sludge makes for a distinctly cheery audience. The sheer, unrelenting intensity of the set, combined with the band’s undeniable virtuosity, forces even the most hardened, cynical Desertfest attendees into a bemused, riff-drunken grin.
Praetorian thrive at a thrilling intersection where crust-punk sensibility collides with blackened sludge heaviness. Their influences, Acid Bath, Soilent Green and Darkthrone, are all there, but twisted into something unmistakably their own.
They could afford to take the cop-out, stand stock-still and still deliver a killer set, but they wholeheartedly reject this philosophy. Each member hurls themself into the music, with drummer Andrew Bisgrove hammering out frenetic, double-timed beats with the apparent intention of ensuring that not an eardrum in Camden borough goes unruptured.
What makes them truly captivating, however, is the dynamic dexterity on display. Brief moments of clean vocals and light-fingered, ethereal post-metal riffs offer fleeting reprieve, showcasing a delicate dash of tranquillity before they inevitably drag you back down into the mire.
Clements’ vocals are astonishing, skipping octaves and slipping between agonising black metal shrieks, guttural grindcore growls, and clean melodies so swiftly that the effect is almost polyphonic.
The set reaches a punishing, thunderous peak with Polartariat, prompting one brave soul to crowd surf, no mean feat in a room of this size so early in the day.
Ultimately, it is an act that feels as much like confrontational, twisted performance art as it does a sludge set. This is pure Desertfest spirit. It is disarming, ludicrously heavy, and entirely unforgettable. “We’ve enjoyed this, it’s been fucking amazing,” Clements grins toward the end, having taken total, uncompromised command of the space.
If Praetorian are on the bill, do not even consider missing them. Just make sure you down your pint first. Consider yourself warned. (Rhiannon Ellis).
Gnome – Electric Ballroom
There is an inevitability to the mid-Desertfest dash, dodging Camden’s drizzle, elbowing through throngs of ambling tourists and patched-up denim, all in the name of beating the dreaded venue caps. It is basically a rite of passage.
But nothing, and I mean nothing, primes the senses for bursting into the Electric Ballroom only to be greeted by an undulating tide of bright red, towering gnome hats. The wearers are immersed in full-blown, impish anarchy, bouncing and cavorting at the command of the three Belgian eccentrics on stage.
Decked out in their synonymous headwear, Antwerp’s self-professed purveyors of “progfuzzriffpartypsychdoomstoner” have the crowd locked in from the get-go.
Rutger Verbist, frontman and guitarist, is chieftain, one foot on the monitor, orchestrating a felt-clad troop of loyal brigands with nothing more than a nod, riff, swoop of the guitar and the occasional quippy remark at his disposal.
The commitment to the bit is total. Sound engineers, bar staff, and even cloakroom crew are crowned in towering red hats. Resistance is futile. Gnome’s exuberance steamrolls everyone in its path.
Geoffrey Verhulst’s low ends bound through the set with colossal, syncopated heft. Deftly wielding his bass like a fuzz-crusted warhammer, he strikes a perfect balance between progressive agility and brute force, anchoring every polyrhythmic detour in thick stoner grit.
There is no filler. This is a crash course in monster hooks and twisted fairytale. Old Soul is a particular crowd pleaser, provoking instant recognition and instant chaos. That momentum only intensifies for The Ogre, another thunderous cut from Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome, triggering a joyous, brilliantly bizarre cross-pollination of circle pits, spiralling into giddy folk-dance routines.
Strangers lock arms like tavern comrades before hurling themselves back into the melee. It is like witnessing a medieval uprising soundtracked by proggy stoner Metal. A festival highlight, hands down.
In the cynical world of heavy music, it is all too tempting to dismiss any band with a visual shtick as pure novelty. Rookie mistake. Look past the party hats, and you are staring down a juggernaut, fiercely inventive, staggeringly tight and more crucially, an absolute riot.
What really sets Gnome apart is the genuine venom simmering beneath their impish veneer. Their technical prowess is as sharp as their wit, and they know exactly when to let the mask slip.
That is why when Rotten Tongue lands, it does so with palpable gravity, channelling all too real, scathing contempt for political decay and archaic institutions behind fantastical narrative and towering riffs. When Verbist briefly drops the trickster persona to make explicit the track’s anti-establishment core, Camden roars in assent loud enough to rattle the rafters.
They close out with a punishing, neck-wrecking blast of Ambrosius, but not before Verbist delivers one last essential nugget of wisdom to the sweat-soaked faithful: “Have fun, you motherfuckers!”
One theatrically blown kiss later, and the trio vanishes into the wings, leaving behind a mass of ringing ears and several hundred delirious Metalheads in novelty headwear.
The hats are ridiculous, sure, but Gnome’s status as an absolute must-see band? That is no joke. (Rhiannon Ellis).
Cwfen – The Underworld
When I spoke with Cwfen before Desertfest London, I could tell right away their set would be a highlight of the weekend. The band came across as warm, thoughtful, and genuinely passionate about their music. They were completely focused on their art, but never seemed pretentious.
Their sincerity fueled the excitement in the venue, and before they even started playing, people were already moving closer, eager to see the band everyone had been talking about in the UK underground.
Cwfen has quickly become one of the most exciting new bands in the British heavy music scene. They mix doom, shoegaze, gothic rock, and post-Metal to create songs that are both haunting and emotional. You can hear hints of artists like Chelsea Wolfe, King Woman, and early post-Metal bands, but Cwfen already has a sound of its own.
Their music feels atmospheric and cinematic, but it always keeps its raw emotional edge.
As soon as they started, the mood in the venue changed. Loud, distorted guitars filled the space, while softer, dreamy parts floated above, mixing gentle moments with heavy sounds. The band played patiently and with restraint, making the show even more gripping. Nothing was rushed. Each song built up slowly and naturally, so every emotional moment and heavy riff hit harder.
Agnes Alder stood centre stage and gave a captivating performance. Sometimes her vocals were soft and almost ghostlike, floating above the music. Then she would suddenly break into raw, powerful screams that filled the venue with energy. Seeing this contrast live was amazing, and every note she sang felt honest and full of emotion.
Behind her, the band played tightly together, settling into slow, steady grooves as the guitars shifted between shimmering shoegaze, dark gothic, and heavy doom riffs. Even amid all the darkness in their music, the show felt uplifting, as if Cwfen were finding beauty hidden within grief and chaos.
By the end of their set, it was clear the band had won over the Desertfest crowd. This was more than just another good festival show. It felt like witnessing the beginning of a band destined for bigger things. Years from now, people will probably remember being at shows like this before Cwfen became huge. (Ash Nash).
Hashtronaut – The Dev
Desertfest always provides a veritable buffet of riffs, but when Friday’s schedule threatened to split me in two, cramming into The Dev for Hashtronaut was non-negotiable.
Riding high on the back of seven prior dates in Europe, the Denver quartet dropped every riff with deliberate, ribcage-shaking weight. Rip Wizard’s eerie samples and bubbling psychedelia offered a fleeting breather, before the band continued propping up monolithic, Sabbath-worshipping slabs of low end.
The onslaught makes the material feel all the more expansive in the confines of The Dev, transforming it into a smoke-filled pressure cooker.
I ducked out early for Hermano (because, come on, it’s John Garcia), but the regret was instant. Walking away from Hashtronaut felt less like beating the clash schedule and more like missing out on another of Friday’s heavy hitters. (Rhiannon Ellis).
Hermano – Electric Ballroom
As Friday night went on at Desertfest London, you could feel something special building at the Electric Ballroom. Everywhere, people talked about Hermano, John Garcia, old Kyuss records, desert grooves, and the music that shaped this scene.
Even before the band came out, the venue was filling with fans eager to see one of desert rock’s true legends up close. When the lights finally dropped, the Ballroom was full of anticipation, excitement, and real affection.
Whenever Garcia steps on stage, some people in the crowd always hope to hear more Kyuss songs, since those tracks mean so much to so many. But the feeling in the room quickly became deeper than just nostalgia.
What mattered most was getting to see a voice that helped define a whole movement, a musician whose influence is still felt throughout Desertfest. The loyalty and warmth from the crowd toward Garcia were great to see. It was more than just admiration for a famous frontman. It felt like real appreciation for someone who has kept the spirit of desert rock alive for decades.
What made the performance feel so powerful was the way Hermano’s music has evolved so naturally over time, ageing with grace while somehow sounding richer and more immersive than ever.
The songs carried all the groove, haze, and dusty atmosphere that people fell in love with years ago, but now there was an added sense of warmth and depth flowing through everything. Every slow-burning riff and smoky melody seemed to drift across the Ballroom like heat rising from desert roads, wrapping itself around the crowd and pulling them further into the music with every passing moment.
Garcia himself sounded phenomenal throughout the set, his voice still carrying that unmistakable weathered soul that has made him such a beloved figure for generations of fans. There is nothing forced about the way he performs, either. He does not rely on theatrics or oversized rock star gestures because he simply does not need to.
Whether leaning into blues-soaked melodies or locking into those huge rolling grooves, he commanded the room effortlessly through sheer presence alone, completely drawing the audience into Hermano’s world.
Behind him, the band was absolutely locked in, allowing the music to breathe and unfold with total confidence and patience. Thick fuzz-drenched riffs rolled across the packed venue while the rhythm section moved with this hypnotic smoothness that made the entire set feel almost dreamlike at times.
Nothing was rushed, nothing felt excessive, and every groove was allowed the time and space to fully settle over the crowd before the next wave arrived.
More than anything, though, the set felt deeply human. There was no ego hanging over the performance, no barrier between band and audience, just a room full of people sharing complete love and respect for this music together. You could see it everywhere across the Ballroom, in the smiles, the closed eyes, the heads swaying slowly beneath the lights as people lost themselves inside songs that clearly still mean so much after all these years.
By the time the final notes rang out across the Electric Ballroom, the room felt transformed completely. For an hour or so, Camden had disappeared entirely and been replaced by something timeless, hazy, and almost mythical, the spirit of desert rock alive and breathing right there in front of everyone.
Hermano did far more than simply headline Friday night at Desertfest. They reminded everybody exactly why this music still matters so deeply, and why John Garcia remains one of the most important and beloved figures this entire scene has ever produced. (Ash Nash).
Meatdripper – The Dev
Friday night at Desertfest, and The Dev is packed to the rafters. Buzzing, sweating, and practically vibrating with anticipation. Even by headline standards, the atmosphere is palpably electric.
Enter Meatdripper, Birmingham’s latest psych-doom breakthroughs, and they are taking no prisoners. They have seemingly bypassed the usual sluggish crawl of the underground, instead landing fully formed as something spectacularly weird, undeniably wonderful and absolutely impossible to ignore.
And for good reason. In a scene that can be guilty of recycling clichés, Meatdripper sound completely singular. The hype surrounding them is near feverish, but based on their Desertfest set, it is not only justified but might actually be selling them short.
Taking the stage to a roar of cheers, whistles, and almost alarmingly feral proclamations of love, the quartet settle in with the psych-sludge stomp of breakout single Spider, its familiar hypnotic groove briefly pacifying the room.
The real highlight of the night? The setlist is almost entirely unreleased material. With only three singles to their name, it is a gamble that would leave many young bands floundering in the festival circuit’s meat grinder.
Meatdripper, however, carry themselves with the unshakeable confidence of an act that understands their place in Birmingham’s musical lineage. Rather than falling into the trap of monotonous, mid-tempo repetition that plagues so much modern stoner rock, Meatdripper treat their riffs like unstable organisms.
Tracks lurch from sludge crawls into wiry noise-rock abrasion, before dissolving entirely into eerie, hallucinatory passages. Just as your brain adjusts to the physics of one groove, they violently rip sideways into another.
A testament to this structural volatility arrives in the form of a new track, Rising Star. A definitive highlight of the night, the song features guitar lines warped by a sickeningly wide, destabilising vibrato, reminiscent of jazz-fusion pioneer John Scofield twisted through a doom lens. Plunging from abyssal depths into frantic, high-speed movements, the track pairs its technical acrobatics with crashing, warbling vocals that feel genuinely seasick in the most exhilarating way.
Frontwoman Han Al-Shemmeri’s lead delivery completely eschews standard Metal tropes. Her vocals bleed through the feedback like a benevolent eldritch witch delivering incantations from deep inside the noise.
Piercing through this hypnotic murk, Zowie Akshara’s savage screams, sudden, serrated flashes of violence that slice through the room and leave the audience visibly reeling.
Anchoring this shifting landscape is a genuinely monstrous rhythm section. Bassist Liv Barlow provides a pulse heavy enough to rattle pint glasses off the bar, yet agile enough to steer the band through sudden, prog-inflected detours without bleeding an ounce of momentum.
Drummer Lich bolts the entire performance down to earth, sending every kick drum strike directly through the floorboards and into the ribcages of the front row.
By the time the almost industrial hammering bass and sparkling riffs of Homegrown drop, the venue has descended into a state of blissful delirium. Illuminated in the venue’s swirling, sickly green lights, bodies collide in tiny (and incredibly polite) mosh pits.
The band caps the night with the primal crowd-pleaser Animal Brains before drifting into a ferocious, syncopated, meandering instrumental outro that feels straight out of a warped fun fair (anyone else play Gast?).
It is a finale that allows the quartet to flex their formidable musical muscles and leaves the distinct impression that they are having an absolute blast. Leaving the stage to a thick haze of feedback and rapturous applause, Meatdripper prove they are not just the future of heavy music. They are the right now. (Rhiannon Ellis).
