13 Bands You Need to See at… Damnation Festival 2024

This weekend, Damnation Festival returns to the BEC Arena in Manchester for a weekend of extremity. Whether you look at it as the end of festival season in the UK or the start of festival season, the November weekender is something every extreme metal fan has on their calendar.

This year is no different, either. Headlined by the mighty gothic black metal legends Cradle of Filth, the hellish beauty of Damnation is how the line-up crosses the length and breadth of the extreme metal spectrum. From grindcore and punk to doom to death metal to progressive metal, a Damnation festival line-up touches all bases.

To help navigate this swamp of unreadable logos, soul-crushing sounds, and bands you’re never ever likely to see in a venue this size again, V13 has picked out 13 bands we think you’re going to want to catch this weekend.

1. Inter Arma

Earlier this year, Inter Arma released their rulebook-breaking, crushing new album New Heaven. Confounding as much as it did impressing both fans and critics, this experimental, suffocating outfit should have been high on your list of ‘must sees’ at Damnation from the moment they were announced. We can’t guarantee that will leave understanding the uncompromising onslaught of shifting sound that just hit you but you will leave utterly gobsmacked.

2. Dragged Into Sunlight

There are bands who you don’t expect to see in a room the size of the BEC Arena and Liverpool extreme metal outfit Dragged Into Sunlight are one of them. There are many bands on the Damnation line-up who will give your senses a mauling this weekend but, after Dragged Into Sunlight have finished with you, they will simply be fighting over the scraps.

3. Cradle of Filth

What better way to finish off this year’s Damnation weekend than in the company of the iconic Cradle of Filth. If you’re still standing by the time the band make what will probably be quite a grand entrance then their exclusive “old school ritual performance” coupled with frontman Dani Filth’s entertaining banter will be well worth sticking around for.

4. Gatecreeper

The last few years has seen a wave of bands flying the flag for death metal. Introducing the genre to a whole breed of new fans, we’ve seen a resurgence in indecipherable logos and dirty, swampy, blast-beat-riddled filth. There are no better exponents of this filth-ridden brutality than Arizona swamp monsters Gatecreeper as you will discover in Manchester this weekend.

5. Morne

By the time Boston, Massachusetts outfit Morne perform on the ‘Night of Salvation’ in Manchester, the Metal Blade quartet will have been in Europe for nearly three weeks honing their live sound for Damnation. Not that their brand of crushing, bleak heaviness will need fine-tuning as their wall-flattening 2024 offering Engraved With Pain demonstrates. Inspired by everyone from Celtic Frost to Ministry to Black Sabbath, they have the crossover appeal to reach every corner of the Damnation fanbase making their set one that has something for everyone.

6. Cult of Fire

Every year at Damnation, there are one or two bands who really push the boundaries of extreme music and put on something truly magical. This year, one of those bands is Prague band Cult of Fire who, through weaving Hindu and Buddhist themes into their dark, atmospheric sound, are one of the line-up’s more intriguing bands who, by the end of the weekend are surely going to be one of the most talked about.

7. Enforced

So, you’ve had your fill of black metal, atmospheric metal, and death metal. What Damnation really needs to refuel the energy levels is a circle-pit inducing injection of crossover thrash. Step up to the stage Enforced who are bringing the mosh all the way from Richmond, Virginia. The question is will your pit-battered bones be up to the challenge?

8. Gillian Carter

The beauty of the Damnation line-up is that there are bands who just refuse to be pigeonholed. Florida outfit Gillian Carter are precisely that. Uncompromisingly chaotic, Gillian Carter’s own form musical catharsism careers from black metal to post-hardcore to punk rock at the blink of an eye. An unfiltered release of emotion, the best you can hope for at Damnation is just to let it all out as you cling-on for dear life.

9. Hangman’s Chair

Parisian band Hangman’s Chair are here to add a bit of melancholy to proceedings at Damnation Festival this weekend. Heavy but not just in the conventional meaning of the term, their exploration of both personal and human emotion is wrapped around a sound has often been seated between the sombre tones of Type O Negative and the crunching hardcore groove of Life of Agony. While that means their set might not be one of the more cheerful ones, it will be one of the ones that, should you really pay attention, will hit you the hardest.

10. Decapitated

We all know what to expect from Polish death metal machine Decapitated this weekend. They’ve been a regular on the touring circuit of the UK and a favourite of the Damnation line-up for ages now. What makes it different this time is that, not only will the band be giving an exclusive performance of their The Negation album but, after a bit of upheaval in the line-up recently, original vocalist Wojciech ‘Sauron’ Wasowicz will be returning to the fold for this one show.

11. Dool

Offering up something slightly different to the usual Damnation fodder, Dutch outfit Dool arrive at Damnation in support of their critically-acclaimed 2024 offering The Shape of Fluidity. An anthemic, mind-bending cocktail of psychedelic and progressive rock, the Dutch band come armed with a rapidly growing reputation and will leave having made Damnation Festival their own.

12. Bleeding Through

For the last few years, Damnation organisers have pulled in some truly classic line-ups like Pig Destroyer, At The Gates and Unearth. This year it is the turn of Orange County metalcore titans Bleeding Through who will be performing their classic This is Love, This Is Murderous album in full. Do not miss this set!

13. Nails

Let’s be honest here. Nails don’t give a fuck about you, us or anything really. Similarly to Anaal Nathrakkh a few years ago, they will give one of the most incredible performances of the weekend. It’s going to be horrible. It’s going to be ugly. It’s also going to have grown men weeping and lesser mortal scurrying for cover. Bands like Nails do not play rooms this size ensuring their set at Damnation will go down in the history books as one of the biggest sonic assaults ever unleashed on a crowd this size.

If you want to know what you’re missing, check out our coverage from Damnation Festival 2023, and even though you’re leaving it pretty late, head over to the Official Damnation Festival website to try and grab one of the few remaining tickets.

Damnation Festival 2024 Poster Artwork