Now into its 15th year as a UK festival fixture, Damnation feels increasingly like a one of a kind coming together for the UK metal underground. Boasting its biggest and most diverse line-up to date and sold-out weeks in advance, 2019 delivered a vintage crop of performances as the best of black, death, prog and technical metal lined up to kick the shit out of all comers across four frantically attended stages running deep into the bowels of Leeds’ University Union.
Embracing the old mantra that it’s always grim up north, we daubed on our corpsepaint, cracked out our crustiest T-shirt and strapped in our gum-guard (seriously, this event has cost broken limbs and cracked teeth more than once in the past) for a charge once more unto the breach. Under the coming darkness of winter, we found a smorgasbord of bands – old and new – that any metalhead worth their denim‘n'leather should be getting excited about faster than a lifeless body flung across the pit...