November 1st marked a huge milestone in the history of British Extreme Metal; The Tenth anniversary of Damnation Festival. The festival has grown from a small affair in Manchester's "Jilly's Rock World", before moving to Leeds University Union, a venue already holding prominent place in Rock history. And this year, the festival also managed to sell out for the first time in its history. I've loved this festival ever since the first time I went to it, in 2012, to see Devin Townsend rip the stage to pieces. It has been showcasing the best of the Extreme Metal world, plus the best the underground has to offer. And this year was no different.

Upon reaching the Union, and getting inside the venue, it's time to check out what the festival has to offer. The merch stands are really good, offering good CDs and t-shirts for bargain prices. The venue is a bit like a labyrinth, and for the first hour or so, it's hard to get around. But things quickly pick up pace when the stages begin to open and the bands begin to play.

To start off with I began my day of Damnation with a band I know could wake me up and give me the show that I could expect the UK's own XERATH. From start to finish the band brought their A game plus much more for when it comes to melodic orchestral Death Metal XERATH have all the bases covered, in all the time that I have seen this band live I have never been disappointed at all for if there's any band that can bring it to a crowd that is lifeless it is XERATH, through their set the guys played songs from their latest release Xerath - II which by far is both strong natured and full of melodic delights for fans of all kinds. To conclude on their set I was just blown away by what they had brought, this was my first time seeing the band with new members and a new record to boot, though there are fans out their that will question new members in any case I believe that they are bringing a new life into what this band has already created in its time.

Leeds Doom/Hard Rock troupe BLACK MOTH are an incredible way for me to start the festival. Singer Harriet Bevan exudes a confidence and swagger that a lot of vocalists are seriously lacking in. Their riffs are sick, their stage presence palpable, and they get a warm welcome from the crowd. This band will no doubt go places very quickly.
 

The next band on the roster for my day was a band that had been suggested to me by various individuals at the festival, Iceland's SOLSTAFIR. From first thought I didn't really know what to think, they were a very different band with some very interesting ideas going through them, both melodic and somewhat dark at the same time, in a lot of ways there was something I was trying to pinpoint when it came to their sound, it had this incredible strength to it which can be seen from the bands stage presence but at the same time there was something I guess I was trying to see, in the end I found that one word could only describe what this band made me feel but in the words of a friend who watched them as well is that SOLSTAFIR is a religious experience, and I can see what she meant by that now, the band have this sound which hits home both mentally and soulfully. In terms of sound all in all there is this very prog sound that I hear mixed with melodic interest which is just so peaceful and somewhat moving at the same time, a band like this comes around only once in a lifetime I would say, and I say this based on what this band made me feel on the inside and out. To conclude on this set, I feel that SOLSTAFIR is a band that needs to be checked out by those who enjoy there smooth and melodic sounds.

After wandering down to the Press area to speak with A FOREST OF STARS, it's time to head down to the Terrorizer Stage to watch WINTERFYLLETH, a set that is basically pre-destined to be a great show. They pull in a huge crowd for their set, and storm through some of their classics, as well as tracks off of "The Divination of Antiquity". Both old and new songs go down well, and the crowd chants along with vocalist Chris Naughton like an infernal choir. It is by far and away one of the highlights of this year's festival.

Leeds' own A FOREST OF STARS were fantastic. It feels strange watching a band that deserves to be playing larger stages all cram onto the tiny Eyesore Stage. They played a great set, and did a good job of rousing the crowd. The only thing I can think to say that is bad about their set is probably the sound. It's hard to get the mix right when you're band features violins, flutes and keyboard, and even harder to recreate some of the atmosphere from the records in a live environment. The band were nonetheless great.
 

Like I was going to forget ORANGE GOBLIN, you can't have a Damnation Festival review without mentioning one of the most insane bands live out there. As always you can expect one hell of a show from this band, and I believe that the crowd on the day will agree, for those that have seen the band perform before will know that they bring a strong Doom Rock vibe onto those that witness there hard hitting jams of chaos, from watching these guys again it does bring back some of the best memories I had from College and as such made me feel incredible to see them bring it hard.

Seeing these guys again was just a treat if I do say so myself, a band featuring the mighty voice of BENEDICTION himself Mr. Dave Hunt, from the time that I got to their set the guys had already started to bring the chaos to the crowd, as I got to their set I only saw what can only be described as a field of fist's punching the sky hard, with what ANAAL NATHRAKH are capable of it is hard to believe that the stage was standing by the end of the set, but either way they were a band that I was excited to see and without a doubt I was not disappointed by what they brought to Damnation, with any hope they will play again in the next two years or so and with any hope for a follow up that we get a UK tour. So to conclude I found that ANAAL NATHRAKH was one of the highlights to my Damnation festival, a band that has remained one of the strongest forces in metal and is still bring it heavier and harder then ever before.

Then it is time for SAINT VITUS. The Doom Metal legends come on to a roar, and immediately slide into their set, which will consist of them playing, among other things, the entire of their classic "Born Too Late" album. The "ECW" chants at the end of "I Bleed Black" (in response to the fact that guitarist Dave Chandler is wearing an ECW t-shirt) are really cool, and adds to the carnival-like atmosphere that has taken hold of the crowd. They close, obviously, with "Born Too Late", and leave the stage to the same bellow of ecstasy that initially greeted them.

After the slow grooves of SAINT VITUS, it's time to kick the music up several gears in terms of speed and brutality; it's finally time for CANNIBAL CORPSE to close the Terrorizer Stage for the day. The room in which it is being held is packed out with close to a thousand people by the time the band hits the stage. They play with energy and confidence, and mix their set up from their usual routine, eventually playing nineteen songs, the last of which was, surprisingly, "Devoured by Vermin".

Their whole set was brilliant, and the band are as tight as they've ever been onstage.
 

So now we come to a band that I have been waiting a very long time to see live, a band that is know mainly for their legendary Merchandise, and of course a band that with every live show has brought us closer to entering the Realm Of Chaos!!, I am of course talking about the mighty BOLT HROWER. From the beginning of their set the band started with "War/Remembrance" off of their fifth studio album … "For Victory", a very strong opener if ever there was one, from witnessing this track played live I felt this energy flowing through me, as if all the excitement that had been stored inside of me had all together been brought out by the dual force of Barry Thompson and Gavin Ward, this is a band that I have waited patiently to see live and by the start of the first track everything just came out like a massive explosion that had been kept in check.

Through the rest of the bands set we saw the band playing fan favorites that made this band who they are in every way, through their set the band played various tracks from their discography with such titles as "World Eater/Cenotaph", "Anti-Tank (Dead Armor Warmaster)" and of course "The Killchain/Powder Burns", as the set continued we saw that the band have no chink in their armor at all as the band like a strong military keeps growing stronger.

All in all I have to say that from what myself and every fan saw that night was a moment that we will never forget, there are your bands that you love and cherish and then there's BOLT THROWER, a band that shows no signs of giving up any time soon and if anything is a band that still counts for everything that Death Metal and Grindcore stand for, with the band being able to put on such a high octane show such as this then the future may be brighter for these legends of Grind.
No Guts! No Glory!
Grind On!!!

The After-Party

After BOLT THROWER finish their brilliant set, it was time to return home for many. I was not one of them. I chose to bravely- no, heroically- head back into the venue to drink beer and listen to Heavy Metal. The after party is held where the Terrorizer stage is, a place that I can safely say is one of the best live music venues I've ever been to. It's basically on old disco hall, with a platform with bars and chairs at the top, a standing area and more bars on a lower tier, and finally a dance floor facing the stage where the likes of XERATH, WINTERFYLLETH and CANNIBAL CORPSE were making their own just a few hours ago. By the time I get there, there's about three or four hundred people there. The music on offer was fantastic and varied, from IMMORTAL all the way through to bands like ROB ZOMBIE. In short, there was something for everyone.
 

As I stumbled home in the wee hours of the morning, I couldn't help but think that this particular instalment of Damnation was brilliant. This is a festival with a consistently good track record of putting on great bands for great value. I'll be getting my ticket for Damnation 2015 the day it goes on sale. Here's to the next ten years guys.
 

Leeds' own A FOREST OF STARS stand apart from the rest of the UK Black Metal scene. Whereas many of their peers stick, more or less, to the traditional blueprint of Black Metal. this band has incorporated various other influences, from Folk music to Ambient music. Metal Temple's Danny Sanderson sat down with the band to talk about the band's persona, their musical influences, the state of Black Metal in the UK in 2014 and the future of the Gentlemen's club.

Hi, this is Danny from Metal Temple, and today I have the pleasure of speaking to A Forest of Stars. So, how are you guys doing?

The Gentleman (Keyboards, percussion): We're doing fine, thank you very much.

Mr T. S. Kettleburner (Guitars): I'm doing good.

Mister Curse: Yeah, I'm doing fine, thank you.

So, you guys are back at Damnation Festival again after two years away. Are you looking forward to your set?

The Gentleman: *Nods* Hang on, I always forget that nodding doesn't work with Dictaphones. [laughs] Yes. It doesn't go far enough to say how utterly, utterly stoked we are to back here and playing again. And especially when you're part of such an amazing line up as this. Even on the stage that we're on, you've just got some of the best Black Metal bands in the country, basically all together, and it's just a case of "Wow"! Yeah though, definitely, couldn't be more excited about it.

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: Yeah, it'll be the first time for me playing here with the band, so I'm really looking forward to it.

The Gentleman: It's also, in fairness, a good chance for us to see some of our friends and catch up with them, as well as watch some brilliant bands as well. So yeah, it couldn't be better.

You've also recently been joined by a new guitarist. How is he fitting into the band?

The Gentleman: Well, we've actually got two, because we've got*motions to the guitarist sat next to him* Kettleburner back in the band, who was on the original albums, and we've also got Mr William Wight-Barrow in the band as well. He's amazing, basically, and he fits so well into the band and is getting on well with everyone. Which is the most important thing really. But not only that, he's also a phenomenal guitarist and has very quickly stamped his own image on what we do, and we couldn't have asked for anything better really.

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: A few of us have had a fair bit of history with him anyway, it's not like someone coming in from the cold entirely, it feels like he's become one of us fairly quickly, to be honest.

The Gentleman: Yes, definitely!

So it isn't a case of you've just got some random guy in the band, it's actually a guy you know very well?

The Gentleman: Definitely, yes. Also, he does what he's told, and that's the most important thing. [laughs]

Obviously, you guys are all based in and around Leeds and the surrounding area. Does that affect the lyrics or the band's image in any way?

Mister Curse: I think there's definitely a bit of Northern soul… no, not the actual movement Northern Soul (laughs), but there's definitely a lot of Northern attitude to the lyrics and music. I, actually, was originally born in Surrey, which is a bit of a bad thing to have to admit out loud.

The Gentleman: Don't worry, you've been repatriated!

Mister Curse: So yeah, maybe there's a little bit of Southern influence in there as well. But yeah, there's definitely been talk of a lot of the grim locations and that's been influenced by the locale, definitely.

Would you say that the lyrics touch on the image of the band, you know, the whole Victorian life and imagery?

Mister Curse: We definitely have a big Victorian theme as part of the band's image, but those aspects don't really rear their head in the actual lyrics as such. It's more like filth and degradation, really.

The Gentleman: There's a lot of universal themes which could be applied to that period, but it's not like we're singing about carriage rides down a dark, cobbled street with gas lamps or anything, you know.

Mister Curse: I mean, when I'm writing the lyrics, I don't intend for it to be of a certain period or a certain time, but we do manage to shoehorn it all together and make it fit into the image, rather than it being based around the image.

The Gentleman: Think of it more as Victorians that are writing lyrics rather than lyrics that are written about Victorians.

Do you think that the lyrics really fit into the overall theme though? Obviously, you mentioned the whole thing about filth and degradation, and during the Victorian era, Bradford and Leeds could probably be best summed up with those words.

Mister Curse: Yeah, like I said, it does sort of fit into the theme in some way. Obviously, you had a lot of division in society at that time, with the incredibly rich and wealthy at one end, marching about in their suits, and then at the other end you've got people basically living in shit. And a lot of the time, there was no middle ground, you were either rich and well off or you were on your back in the street, basically. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of references to the… shall we say the darker and dirtier side of life, and the less fortunate perspective of life.

You guys are one of the biggest Black Metal bands in this country, and-

The Gentleman: Do you mean in terms of actual band size, or fan base? Because there's seven of us. [laughs]

I was actually meaning more prominent and well known. I mean, apart from Winterfylleth, you guys are perhaps the most well known Black Metal band from the UK.

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: It's really hard to say, to be honest.

Mister Curse: I've never really seen us as a particularly big or popular band, really. I mean, nobody really comes up to us or stops us in the streets to talk to us and get our autograph anything.

The Gentleman: Except in Germany, maybe. [laughs]

But I guess my question is, do you think that Black Metal in the UK is thriving at the moment, and where do you think the scene stands as a whole in the present?

The Gentleman: At the moment, it's fantastic. In the last six years or so the scene has sort of blossomed into a golden age of UK Black Metal. You've got really well known bands like WINTERFYLLETH and WODENSTHRONE, and then you have a lot of really great underground bands like FALLOCH and FEN. I know that I'm going to miss out a load of really brilliant bands from this list, because there's so many good ones. There's also < CODE >, I almost forgot to say < CODE >! If you look at a lot of the bands on the bill this year, especially on the Eyesore and Terrorizer Stages, you've got a list of the absolute cream of the Black Metal crop. And there's a lot of really great bands popping up all over all the time.

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: If British Black Metal did have a reputation for, I'd like to think that it's for putting out some of the best output and material of recent years in this scene. It's kind of changed from being a small, very little known thing a few years ago to being a massive, brilliant scene. I'd gladly listen to the last WODENSTHRONE album alongside any of the classics, personally.

Mister Curse: It's basically just a bunch of great people putting out honest, genuine music. I mean, most of the time, you'll get one really fantastic band that make some incredible music, but then you get about twenty or thirty copyists who write in the same style, which gets boring. But in this case, it's actually a load of people going out and doing what they want to do musically rather than following someone else. Which is a really great thing to see.

It's kin d of a contrast to the American scene. The American Black Metal scene has a lot of good bands, but there's also a lot of bands that are really crap. And I've heard of a few bands from all over who have gone from writing, for example, Metalcore, to suddenly doing Black Metal.

Mister Curse: You see, a lot of bands like that will do it solely because it's the flavour of the month. That sort of stuff is… well, I haven't got any time for bands like that.

So, you've also played a couple of dates in Whitby last week. What were they for, and how did they go?

Mister Curse: It was actually just the one, but for some reason, on the internet there was some confusion as to what date we were playing. We played the Sunday.

The Gentleman: Yeah, it was something called the "1880's Night".

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: It was like a big ball, basically, with lots of fancy dress and dining tables, and at the party everyone was very well dressed and it was really good fun. Some of the crowd didn't really get it, but it was still a really successful show.

Compared to a lot of bands in the UK scene, you have a very different sound. It isn't necessarily straight up Black Metal. So what are your main influences?

The Gentleman: Oooh! There's a lot of them. A lot of the time with the bands we like, it isn't a case of us going "Well, I like that band, so we'll try and do something like what they've done", it's more like we'll take a band we love and try to recreate some of the feel of what they've done, rather than the actual music style itself. It's kind of, we'll love something in their sound that they've done and what they're saying, so we'll try and capture that. For instance, I think that PINK FLOYD is a huge, massive influence on us. There's obviously a lot of the obvious stuff, like EMPEROR , BURZUM, MAYHEM and DARKTHRONE, and there's a lot of stuff like that in there, but it's more stuff like PINK FLOYD and SWANS that we try to add to the normal mix.

Mister Curse: What about TANGERINE DREAM?

The Gentleman: Oh, yes, TANGERINE DREAM are a huge influence, at least on my song writing and what I do in the band. Also, JOHN CARPENTER is quite good. Also, there's a lot of Folk stuff that we like, like STEELEYE SPAN and PENTANGLE, a lot of the main bands in the English Folk scene. And a lot of these things, although they might not be immediately apparent that we're blatantly incorporating that, they're all part of the DNA of our band and how our music comes together. I mean, we've only just scratched the surface with that list of bands.

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: A lot of our songs are, basically, an old idea in a new context.

Mister Curse: I'd definitely say though, we all have pretty varied tastes in music. We all listen to different stuff, but first and foremost we all love music. So we've all managed to bring some of the music we love to the table and incorporate that into the overall sound and managed to amalgamate it into one big thing.

The Gentleman: There's also a lot of the Arabic stuff that I listen to. I do a lot of stuff within Yorkshire which are part of the Arabic and belly-dancing scene, and I've taken a lot of influence from there. And a lot of the Rhythms and odd timings in that are amazing, and it's great to see how you can incorporate that into what we do. So yeah, it's just basically magpie thievery of all different types of music.

Mister Curse: If it's shiny, we'll have it.

In terms of new material, are you working on a new album?

Mr T. S. Kettleburner: Absolutely. Yes, there is a new album that is heavily guarded and shrouded in secrecy, so we're not allowed to talk about it yet, but it is completed, it is stamped and we're working on all of the stuff to go with, like the new music video and a lot of other stuff, including, hopefully, a supporting tour of it next year. We're all really excited about it, we're really happy with the output, and looking forward to putting it out, and letting the world finally hear it.

The Gentleman: Yeah, it's going to be out sometime early next year, and it's basically in the final stages, it's been handed over for mastering and stuff like that, we've still got to sort out the video and the artwork, and of course, we've got to rehearse it.

Mister Curse: It's almost fully done and we're looking forward to getting back on track doing more stuff with the band in the near future.

It sounds awesome, I can't wait to hear it! So, in terms of live shows, what are you doing after your set today?

The Gentleman: We've basically got one gig next week, which is for a friend of ours, and that's an all day thing called the Yorkshire Riffer 2. So, we're doing that, and then that's basically it for this year, then we're going back into finishing everything surrounding the album, and of course we're going to have a large Gentlemen's Club party to celebrate Christmas, and then we're doing a bunch of rehearsals and stuff, and preparing for the new album.

And finally, do you have any messages for your fans?

The Gentleman: We're very, very sorry. [laughs]

Thank you so much for your time guys!

Check out the new A FOREST OF STARS album when it is released next year.