Incineration Fest 2025

04 May, 2025

3/5/2025

Copse

@ The Dev

Blackgaze band fronted by Ed Gibbs of Devil Sold His Soul

Awesome to see them at such a small venue, and thankfully this time, instead of a literal 5 foot tall subwoofer speaker (when I saw Kayo Dot at this same venue), I had an unshaven twink screaming directly in front of me. For this compact a set, you can do no wrong. I love 'New Despair' anyway, but I've grown to love 'Mondrem' as well!

This was more of a treat for me than anything, cos to others, they're just "some opening Black Metal band" as far as I could tell, but actually, to me at least, they are covert Screamo with black metal melodies and blast beats. "But Leia, isn't that just Deafheaven?" Nah. There's way more blatant Screamo and Devil Sold His Soul-isms in Copse.

Turns out that the tape I got of their Old Belief | New Despair EP was their last. I may retroactively make note of what merch I got from previous shows on this list too, at least as far as memory serves. Literally just ripping off DaughterOfJanus from RYM there.

They were really good!/10

Múr

@ Roundhouse

Biggest surprise of the festival! They sounded pretty fucking huge live! I really hope for their sakes that they gain more traction to be able to keep doing what they're doing, because I would very much recommend seeing them if you can, even if you just find their music to be alright on record, which I kinda did to be frank... My initial impressions were that I found their compositional palette a little too simplistic, but that actually works massively in their favour here imo. For at home listening, it'll likely translate a lot better on speakers, at a responsibly high booming volume, than on headphones, not that I've tried yet, but then I'm not a reliable source for speaking on headphone-listening experiences cos of how bad my hearing is. Big telly also helped with the atmosphere, even if it was basically just projections of someone dressing up weird and playing with iMac's Photo Booth filters.

I did see a bit of Spectral Wound in the Electric Ballroom before going out to see Múr, but it seems it was especially wise of me to leave early because of the big line at the Roundhouse which made it so I only missed the intro to the first track here. Spectral Wound were pretty good, baring whatever fucking black metal cock rock they were playing 3 songs in, but I got to see them play 'Frigid and Spellbound'! Yeah yeah, I know... my favourite is the fan favourite. I feel low key guilty like someone at a Converge concert heckling the band to play 'Concubine'.

Merch I got from the Electric Ballroom: Sarcófago - The Laws of Scourge on cassette

They were really good!/10

Cryptopsy

@ Electric Ballroom

Nice to get to see them again after 11 years (damn) and not have to leave partway cos of feeling sick, instead of just having my calves be in complete agony like they were whilst I was here.

Typical setlist from them, supporting band and all, aside from fitting their latest single in there. Beyond that and 'Open Face Surgery', which was awesome by the way, it was evenly split between None So Vile songs and As Gomorrah Burns songs. I do not even need to elaborate regarding the None So Vile tracks. All 10/10 tracks and they did them well, though goddamn 'Benedictine Convulsions' would have gone super hard if they'd played that as well methinks. Of course, I don't think even nearly that highly of their newer output, but those much newer songs were still fun live too!

I get it with time restraints and all, but it sucks to not have room for stuff like 'Cold Hate, Warm Blood' or 'Carrionshine', if they'd have even chosen to play songs like those... or say, 'Defenestration' even. Oh well!

They were really good!/10

Blood Incantation

@ Roundhouse

I already mentioned on my media log (my old, now unpublished one on RYM) about how Absolute Elsewhere didn't excite me as it did on my first listen, so I was honestly sad that me seeing them perform here wouldn't do a whole lot for me, since I know they've mainly been out playing that album in full and only really had time to do that this time around. I figure I may have actually been interested if they were mostly playing stuff from Starspawn, but this is an isolated anomaly of an event where I am actually being that snobby, if more than I intend to. Every time they went into a pseudo-Pink Floyd section, you'd notice the odd yellow flannel-wearing guy jumping for joy every 5 square metres, and further at the back, covert music journalists not doing too well to hide their "surprise school inspection"-energy would jot down positive notes on their massive clipboards. Not really my kinda vibe tbh... believe it or not.

Like Múr, Blood Incantation had their own semi-elaborate visual set-up, this time consisting of what seems to me like someone playing Journey on the PS3 or PS4, and on either side of the stage, there'd be Blood Incantation's take on Spinal Tap's stonehenge, as well as projections of... DNA? Yeah yeah, I know, "when Iron Maiden do it, you find it cool, but when (other band) do it..." etc etc. I'm just taking the piss.

As tends to be the case really, not to keep doing Blood Incantation down or damning them with faint praise so much, I feel bad enough already lol... if you like the music enough, the live set will resonate accordingly. Blood Incantation were good here! Pseudo-Timeghoul with space rock sections sounds like enough of a leiacore thing on paper that it definitely sucks that it doesn't actually resonate with me more, but I still love that that's the sorta thing they're doing and they're about that, and I think we know them well enough now to assume that whatever they do next it's highly unlikely that they'll backtrack or not do something interesting, or at least that's my personal outlook on things there.

Decent/10

Triptykon

@ Roundhouse

Much to say about this one, though I should also mention that I'm not sure how much of this is really any good of an indicator of what anyone seeing Triptykon later this month should expect. Tom G. Warrior explicitly said that the festival requested a very "exclusive set" here, so just bare that in mind.

'Circle of the Tyrants' is one hell of a way to open a set, as is 'Slit Your Guts' for Cryptopsy, which they did earlier that night. Just in general, absolutely rock-solid opening subset of songs that met my hopes for this set overall where I'm just vibing off of Morbid Tales to To Mega Therion era classics!

And then they switched to their usual guitars that they use for Triptykon (for tuning list enthusiasts, they went from D Standard to B Standard), and 'Procreation (of the Wicked)', especially at the pace they played it at, fucking destroyed. It's already one of the most unfuckwithable Doom Metal classics as it is, and then you get what is essentially "the Monotheist version" of the song... The best live recording I could find of them playing that song in that way is here, recorded at one of Celtic Frost's final live shows, but still pretty much verbatum like what I saw here... Speaking of Monotheist, they followed that with 'Ground'!... and then 'A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh'!... and just like that, the "Triptykon performing Celtic Frost" show became a much deeper experience for me personally and emotionally than I was even remotely prepared for.

I think my biggest regret regarding this festival was not managing to meet up with the guy with whom I used to be in a band with, a band who were named after a song I mentioned here just earlier, and us covering 'Dethroned Emperor' (which Triptykon also played a little later) was pretty much a staple of the few live shows we ended up doing. Realistically speaking, I would've just embarrassed myself with my hysteric womanly emotions, but for real though, I've been in touch with this guy in recent years and he's still super cool and lovely! I wish I could still get to hang out with him in person these days, but I digress...

'A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh' also hit deep for me because hearing a version of it with Tom G. Warrior's vocals in place of Martin E. Ain's distorted shrieking on record is uhhhh... this isn't me saying the song was "worse" or anything, but it was legit grief-inducing for me, more than I can ever recall feeling in regards to a real-life musician that I didn't know personally. I actually almost teared up there, and if they had played 'Obscured' as well, the emotional weight I'd feel from that song alone, though not in a way directly relating to Martin, I would've turned into a complete blubbering emotional mess...

After such an emotional beating, they ended their set with 'Synagoga Satanae', which I was absolutely not prepared for anyway, but this?... At the time, the intensity of the conflicting emotions I was feeling mainly just amounted to me feeling overwhelmed, and that was even just before this song came on. 'Synagoga Satanae' was brutal! There's a special kind of darkness, an emotional darkness that I feel is captured no better than it is on this song, or 'The Prolonging' by Triptykon, though that's more in a different sorta way. That darkness was tangible enough to taste... funny to say given some little thing I'm gonna bring up later, but seriously though... absolutely fucking crushing! So crushing that I could hardly handle it frankly, but Tom G Warrior's musical output in general means a fucking lot to me and it's telling that even now it leaves one hell of an impact on me, no matter what form it takes.

Oh yeah, so not long after seeing Copse, I did go to the Black Heart to try out the vegan wings they were selling there just for the festival, vegan wings that were covered in "Triptykon-inspired" korean-style BBQ sauce. They were also selling a burger with the vegan patty coated in the same sauce, and a "Triptykon Frost IPA" or whatever they called it. I'm not really a beer/lager person or whatever, but I tried a bit of the IPA and I fuck with the frosty sorta taste it had, and it sucks that I didn't have any of my beer-drinking friends around to try it or finish it for me. The vegan wings were fucking awesome! Blackest sauce I've ever seen on any food, pretty goddamn tasty too, both the sauce and a vegan wings... I think they might've even tasted better than actual chicken wings tbh. Good thing I'm spending a good deal of time in Brighton later this month, because I am not done with trying out good vege/vegan food... and more vegan wings in general.

Big shoutouts to Adam from Acid Horizon!

9/10

#blood incantation #celtic frost #copse #cryptopsy #mur #seen live #triptykon