Review by Emily Castles
Photos by Artur Tarczewski
Camden, eh? Who’d go there? Tourists with no directional capabilities. Street performers that think spinning a potato is some kind of skill. Tourists that affirm these delusions. Dozens of nut-sellers and doughnut wranglers. Oh… and a whole bunch of metalheads gearing for the UKs most devastating, most brutal, most gut-wrenchingly disgusting metal festival – this is Incineration Festival, back to celebrate its 20th birthday.
The annual takeover of the Electric Ballroom, Underworld, Black Heart and the Dev commences early. Hailing from the seaside town of Scarborough, Ante-Inferno possess the murky depths of the Underworld this Saturday morning with a sunrise sacrifice. Their no-nonsense, moody and gloomy, black metal attitude goes down a treat.
Meanwhile, upstairs in The Black Heart, Derby’s Devastator earns an enthusiastic crowd. During the sound check, the technician enquires, ‘Shall we try the intro track?’, to which frontman Thomas Collings replies ‘No, we can’t, we forgot the CD… there’s your comedy for the evening.’ That was the end of the comedy, however – as the band launches into their blasphemous concoction of blackened speed metal.
Taking over the largest of today’s venues, the Electric Ballroom, Mancunian’s Winterfyllth (pictured above) grace us with their miserable presence. They announce that we can expect a new record out at the end of this year, and play several new tracks from said record – including, what they claimed was ‘the shortest Winterfylleth track ever’ – which must have been, at least, six minutes.
They are followed by Norwegian black metal legends Carpathian Forest (pictured above), which provide one of the best dancers of the day via an extremely jovial keyboardist. Formed by Nattefrost in the early 90s, after a brief hiatus the band reformed in 2017 – but have not since released any further records. The set is therefore a welcome trip down memory lane, which goes down a treat with a crowd salivating over some TNBM.
Back over at the demonic hole that is the Underworld, we have a change of pace with Danish hardcore group Hexis. Upon walking into the room, you may have been slightly confused – coming face to face with a man in skinny Adidas tracksuit joggers. Not quite the usual black metal attire. However, there is no messing with frontman Filip Andersen who flies around the room like a metal version of Liam Gallagher.
The boys from Brum, Anaal Nathraakh (pictured above), earn the most animated crowd of the day. The ever humble Dave Hunt welcomes us, telling us ‘I suppose I might have been drunk and forgotten, but I don’t think I’ve actually been to this venue before – nice, ennit?’ – looking admiringly around the beer-stained walls of the Electric Ballroom.
Hunt always has a lot to say, and does not shy away from the absence of his ‘right-hand man’ Mick Kenney – telling us that he’s so famous he needs a lawyer to leave his house (presumably referring to his recent TikTok success with phonk/Memphis rap music). Despite Kenney’s absence, Nathrakh still put on one of the best performances of the day – with unmatched charisma, power and ferocity.
Everyone’s favourite metal thespians, Belphegor (pictured above), also take to the Ballroom with a stage show so bloody it gives Shakespeare a run for his money. There’s a lot of raising of skulls, satanic imagery and bloodcurdling growls – Helmuth ever the captivating showman.
Closing the day is Finland’s Amorphis (pictured above). Going for over three decades, in recent years the band have moved much more into the progressive and folk metal sphere – but began their musical voyage as a death metal band, earning them top of the bill this evening.
And that’s it for another year of Incineration Festival – not a bad way to celebrate two decades of brutalising Camden in the most wonderful of ways.
