Faetooth & Tomb Slab at The Craufurd Arms, Milton Keynes

“Is it in our roots to be this way forever?“

Cult favourite LA ‘fairy doom’ three-piece Faetooth brought Nottingham sludge merchants Tomb Slab with them for an intimate off date at The Craufurd Arms. We sent Anton to survey, photograph, and document the wreckage – contact Anton prior to any image use.

Tomb Slab

Just a few weeks away from the launch of their self-titled debut album, and with fists full of new material to air out, Tomb Slab launched straight into an assault of crusty, blackened sludge. Frontman Dean Lettice hops the barrier and proceeds to vent a wounded howl in the faces of the audience. A weeknight support slot is a tough gig for any band, but Tomb Slab confront the crowd directly and demand their full attention. There are no frills to their sound, and while the formula is straightforward, it works perfectly for that very reason. The distortion is skull rattlingly loud, abrasive and bass heavy. Working in tandem with Lettice‘s direct confrontation of the punters, Tomb Slab are quite simply impossible to ignore.

Faetooth

Perhaps the unique attribute Faetooth possess is their subtlety. Entirely uncharacteristic of doom, sludge, shoegaze, or any of the myriad sounds that come together to form the heady brew of fuzzy, feedback driven riffs they title ‘Fairy Doom’. They navigate their influences without falling into any of the tired genre tropes that permeate the many corners of the metal underground. Managing to craft a genuinely unique atmosphere that sits perfectly at home in warm confines of the Craufurd Arms.

Balancing the dynamic between their loudest and quietest moments with expert chemistry, Faetooth deal in a truly expansive sound. Opening with a deafening rendition of “Iron Gate“, they delve into a stream of songs from 2025’s Labyrinthine. From the chugging sludge of “White Noise” to the cinematics of “Mater Dolerosa” and a particularly emotional and raw “October“, the strength of their most recent effort speaks for itself.

While they may be spending the majority of this current run of shows featuring on festival stages, open to the air and with massive audiences, it’s in a room like tonight’s that their sound truly shines. The venue was small enough that whispered exchanges of breathy vocals between joint singers Ari May and Jenna Garcia can be heard between their vicious shrieks and the floor shaking reverberation of distorted bass. By the time they closed with fan favourite “Echolalia“, the band faded into a wall of dry ice that framed their silhouettes in an ethereal atmosphere, truly fitting their sound.