“Our tattered beauty held close to a corpse…”
Incineration festival is London metal’s way of kick starting the summer. Taking place across five storied venues for the heavy scene – Roundhouse, Electric Ballroom, Underworld, Black Heart, and Devonshire Arms – it’s twelve hours of wall to wall metal, including death, black, grind, punk and progressive styles. Off the bat, we’ll say that the 2025 line up was a hair stronger, with the full Decapitated tour package joining and the rarity (at least at the time) of Blood Incantation, Múr and Batushka shows. This is a case of something being unbeatable rather than 2026 being lackluster, as discussed in our preview, there was a lot to be excited for.
As the day went on we found ourselves agreeing that there was a certain kind of “Incineration” band, more specific than the broad church of extreme metal you see at first glance. You know it will be punishing, proficient in the way they punish, and provide some sort of genre mix that is difficult enough to explain that it’s worth just giving up and letting people try it out themselves. No single band we saw at the fest fit neatly into just one category, perhaps with exception to the headliner, but that was its own important outlier. The result is a very diverse day, despite how it looks to outsiders.
Words in this piece by Dobbin T, Emily Cole, Anton Smeeton and Kieran White. Photography by Kieran White and Anton Smeeton (contact prior to any image use) – head to our full gallery of the event on its dedicated page here.
Incineration started with a minor issue – Afsky had to drop at the last minute due to illness. Luckily Yersin were on-time and ready to become the fest’s singular opener. They’d had their own struggles, mentioning several car breakdowns on their trip down from Sunderland. However, they executed a great set with far more eyes on them than expected, as all the early attendees crammed into the Black Heart. Using a single wretched guitar plugged into three amps, they created ridiculous sonic girth. The setup gleefully sacrificed precision for sheer ferocity, something the Black Heart always enhances. Their tracks regularly hit melodic sweeping segments accompanied by double kicks, contrasting with their typical hardcore sludge sound. The most memorable track was their closer “DIE ALONE” with its amen break drums and repeated closing refrain (“I am destined to die alone”). For the early birds, this was a great way to warm up.
If the Afsky drop had another effect, it was packing out the Underworld early for Mutagenic Host, one of the UK’s most promising death metal bands right now. Our writers were happy to find they sounded great from the back of a very busy room, but didn’t fight forwards, focusing on the next set – Der Weg Einer Freiheit at the Electric Ballroom. Several minutes before their start time, they began a sample of chilling vocals, building the depressive tone (a bit of emotional whiplash is to be welcomed at a good festival). Their latest record Innern was the set’s main focus, which did a lot to make their classically epic post-black sound more immediately accessible. Sure enough, it was easy to grasp the point of their four track setlist. Pieces like “Eos” offer insanely good riffs underlined by blast beats and throat singing, plenty to hold the attention of all. The drumwork was something to behold from the upper viewing area, unhinging a few jaws with the ridiculous fills.
From here onwards audiences were more spread out between the five venues as the Roundhouse opened for business. First up were Grave Miasma, who immediately gripped the crowd with their relentless blend of death and black metal. With skulls adorned on their mic stands and their faces smeared with dark paint, their aesthetic perfectly mirrored their suffocatingly hostile sound. Whilst the expansive space of the Roundhouse seemed ideal for their reverb-heavy atmospheres, the acoustics ultimately worked against them, leaving their overall sound feeling somewhat drowned out. However, even with the muddy mix masking the aggression of the downbeat amongst the rest of the band’s abrasive instrumentation, Grave Miasma managed to continuously command the spotlight and remained as a great opening act for the venue and the bands to come.
The Roundhouse stage was soon claimed by Fuming Mouth – a familiar name in the Boolin Tunes archives. With expectations running high in the crowd, Fuming Mouth were greeted with dedicated fans and in return, met the audience with crushing force. Frontman, Mark Whelan, conquered the stage with absolute authority, delivering a set defined by their riff-heavy brutality and harsh gutturals. With tracks from Last Day of Sun and earlier releases, the band’s “sing-along” death metal energy ignited the room. However, this set wasn’t without its flaws. The most notable of which was the brittle tone of the lead guitar, which left the solos sounding thin and uncomfortably exposed. Furthermore, the occasional clean vocals lacked the execution and tightness of the heavier passages, creating a discordant contrast against the band’s otherwise hard-hitting aggression. Despite these cracks in their performance, Fuming Mouth proved that they deserve their space in the scene, making it clear that the band are their best when they lean into their core sound.
Continuing the theme of unrelenting death metal, Tomb Mold drew one of the festival’s bigger crowds, a display of their consistent cult following. Their set was a masterclass in modern death metal, with a dynamic sound and discography that was anchored by their formidable live presence. Though seven years had passed since their last performance in London, the Canadian band did not miss a beat. Most notably, lead guitarist, Derrick Vella, held the audience captive with his sweeping solos and effortless rhythms, captivating the room with spacey melodies as well as grinding riffs. This was bolstered by drummer and vocalist, Max Klebanoff, who provided a ferocious foundation of punishing percussion and visceral vocals, adding an additional layer of brutality. Tomb Mold‘s performance was virtually flawless, subsequently met with a deservedly prolonged ovation.
While the UK has never had the numbers of black metal bands our cousins on the continent have enjoyed, the scene makes up for the shortfall in quantity with quality. Final Dose are a jewel in the crown of the British underground. Riding high off a string of quality releases, they’ve stacked the Black Heart to its rafters. The crowd are packed in like tinned fish, drenched in sweat and smothered in a thick blanket of dry ice. It’s into this suffocating atmosphere that Final Dose unleash their buzzsaw riffs, instantly achieving total sensory overload. Ripping through their set at breakneck pace, the heat in the room is only building and combined with the blistering volume of the London five piece. The audience have no escape from the onslaught and inside thirty minutes both they and the band are completely spent.
Back at the Electric Ballroom, one of the most anticipated sets for many was Dragged Into Sunlight. We’d all heard buzz about their current tour shows, supported by Vacuous and Plague Pit, which were stunning audiences up and down the country. Now it was our turn to be spellbound. They are quite literally hard to watch – they keep their backs to the audience, letting an omen of a candelabra and dual amplifier spires define their physical presence, whilst the lights fire pure white strobes. From above, we watched their lighting engineer gleefully fire each strobe manually, as much part of the band as the rest of them. Of course, the important aspect is the sonic one, and their nihilistic blackened sludge was presented in a practiced, crystal clear format, replete with serial killer samples and inscrutable interludes. A rowdy most pit responded to every tempo switch, making the room’s fog look like kicked up dust. It’s safe to say Dragged Into Sunlight’s legend is deserved.
As one of the heavyweights on this year’s bill, Grave delivered a memorable performance featuring their original band lineup. Though their early start and location of the Roundhouse resulted in a smaller crowd, the band effortlessly displayed their four decades of death metal experience through every track in their setlist. Grave‘s old-school anthems like “Extremely Rotten Flesh” drew a feral response, with a non-stop sea of headbanging consuming the crowd. Their barrage of neck-snapping breakdowns, buzzsaw riffs, and crushing drums was reinforced by a blistering use of pyrotechnics, creating a monumental spectacle that was perfectly suited for such an iconic band. Grave’s performance was faultless and certainly not one to miss; the only shame was that more people were not there to witness it.
One of Nine are one of the most exciting prospects on today’s line-up, fresh off the back of their 2nd LP Dawn of the Iron Shadow, an album that managed to storm its way into a startling number of end of year lists. There’s a palpable buzz in the room for the UK debut of material broadly considered to be some of the best black metal of 2025. After a thorough sound check the fans are rewarded for their patience with a crisp mix that lets One of Nine‘s signature balance of fantasy synths and relentless tremolo guitar truly shine. The band match the sound with a commitment to an atmosphere fitting of their inspirations, all five members come hooded and robed like their Nazgul namesakes and banter is set aside in favour of brief extracts of Tolkien‘s text. This kind of theatrical take on black metal isn’t for everyone, but everyone in the Underworld tonight is here for it. And while there are no singalong moments to be had, their immersion is total. It’s a rare sight to see a band have every member of an audience so visibly caught in their imagination, but One of Nine seem to have achieved it effortlessly.
Staying true to our own recommendations, writer Dobbin set out on a quest to catch some acts on the smallest stages. The Dev’s setup was excellent, having boarded up the windows at the back of the venue to enhance the atmosphere; much less a pub, more a ritual, unaffected by daylight or nosy onlookers that would typically affect all but the late evening sets. Outergods started a bit late but whipped up a viridian storm with their cosmic black metal. As promised their singer jumped into the audience in a possessed state, veins bursting with immense rage, yet smiling at friends in the crowd. With a solid crowd in attendance, Dobbin switched venues to ensure Plague Pit got some of our attention. Mixing punk, hardcore, black metal and d-beat, they’ve kicked off with a viciously good EP, A Whispered Curse. This is backed with a sick live show full of tortured vocals and practiced feedback. They stick to fundamentals, so there’s no single riff of theirs that will blow the doors of heaven open, but it’s all executed perfectly. On such a demanding day it’s very hard to get pit movement from audiences, but Plague Pit’s sound eventually got there.
Heading the Electric Ballroom are Hypocrisy. Noted veterans of Scandinavia’s prolific melodic death metal scene, yet scandalously under-appreciated in comparison to the Gothenburg royalty that most will associate with the sound. Their set tonight is a tour de force of metal showmanship. Digging into their lengthy catalogue for extraterrestrial antics and packing the stage with as many lights and smoke machines as the Ballroom can handle. When Hypocrisy walk on stage they enter with enough energy that the production feels almost stifled by the room. Both the stage set-up and the audience’s enthusiasm exceeded expectation, and could just as easily be seen filling the Roundhouse. Touching in on a wide spread of material from across their career in short order, the fans are left with nothing to ask for.
For most of our contingent, the day ended at the Underworld to witness Internal Bleeding. A cornerstone of slam, brutal death and even hardcore, this was a fantastic booking for Incineration and the perfect sendoff for those who hadn’t spent all of their energy yet. Vocal duties were being filled in by Sherwood Webber (Skinless), who was careful not to step on any toes in the way he spoke to the audience about the band’s legacy, a great way to respect the absence of the band’s singer Steve Worley. Webber’s performance was fantastic, not to mention the insane chops that the rest of the band has, from the “godfather of slam” Chris Pervelis to bassist Ryan Giordano who threw aggressive headbangs over the most complex riffs. They didn’t take it too seriously – one of the tuning interludes was Goldeneye’s pause music – and made repeated calls for hardcore moshing and two stepping. As is often the case, the riotous audience made the Underworld’s ‘no stage diving’ posters look a bit pathetic.
Last year’s Incineration brought us a historical approach to a headliner in the form of Triptykon playing Celtic Frost, one of the most influential bands in extreme metal. Before the announcement of this year’s Incineration headliner, we were thinking of how they could potentially top that in terms of headliner stature. What we received was Blood Fire Death, a tribute to the music of legendary and seminal band Bathory. First impressions were that a tribute band for a headliner was underwhelming, but finding out that this tribute band’s core lineup was members or former members of Enslaved, Aura Noir, Emperor, Mayhem and Watain changed minds. This is no ordinary tribute, this is the real deal.
Quorthon and the music of Bathory are widely considered to be the foundation of what became black metal today. Having such a well executed tribute be the headline act of Incineration 2026 is not only pretty damn cool, it’s a continuation of their mission statement to be the biggest and best UK festival for extreme metal music. As the infamous acoustic intro and neighing horses of “A Fine Day to Die” ring out in a darkened hazy Roundhouse, Gaahl best known as the former vocalist of Gorgoroth slowly walks out on stage and lets out a shrill scream as the song starts. It’s a massive moment and this already iconic song sounds incredible in a live environment, as the repeating riff continues to get the crowd riled throughout.
The group continue to rattle through Bathory’s extended catalogue of bangers with pyro ablaze. They paused to pay tribute to Quorthon and introduce more guest appearances, including Attila Csihar of Mayhem, Grutle Kjellson of Enslaved, and Fredrick Melander who was the original bassist of Bathory in 1983 and 1984. The performances of everyone in Blood Fire Death were fantastic, and was absolutely the gold standard of everything a tribute act should be. The atmosphere in that room was electric, filled with Bathory fans who might’ve believed they’d never get to see these songs in a live environment and Blood Fire Death paid tribute to these songs perfectly with all the energy and passion they deserve. The only question now is what comes next for Incineration? Time will tell but if Incineration 2026 was to be the last iteration of the festival, Blood Fire Death would be the perfect way to cap it all off.
With the dust of the day settled well and truly on our boots, our whole squad was very satisfied with 2026’s Incineration. It’s worth noting the caveats of the day (individual performances not hitting the standard we hoped for is part and parcel of a festival). The key one that will always keep coming back is the Camden venue setup. Navigating the crass crowds during the day as one travels between venues doesn’t get any better with time (hopefully they’ll pedestrianise more of Camden’s main road, or tourists will simply realise there’s almost nothing unique about the market or the weirdos on the bridge and leave it for us).
The festival continues to be heavily stacked, and the Roundhouse to Ballroom walk is the path of pain for anyone chasing every big name on the list. It was common to discuss this with attendees and many call for it to be a two day event, something perhaps like Desertfest, so that it’s not such a rush, but that will never be an easy call for the event as it’s a massive change to the financing. What did improve this year is that there were not many occasions where venues filled up, something that plagued the early hours of the year prior. Whether this is down to better pacing of the schedule, or simply a less stacked line up, it’s not abundantly clear, but it’s good to know that there were far fewer disappointments (Afsky will hopefully return another year).
What certainly changed from 2025 was the price. This year the price of Incineration was just above £100. We don’t want to single it out – it’s far, far from the only festival that’s jumped in price. Just one example is Slam Dunk, which has hit an eyewatering £139 (pre fees), and we all know that prices for individual shows are jumping, too. Festival bookers are really feeling the crunch coming from the general hit of inflation and the high price tag that many headliners are expecting, and more we don’t even know about behind the scenes. The relevant comparison is to Desertfest, whose single days aren’t quite so busy, but sit at about £70 (and a full ticket for all three of its days is about £180) – we don’t see Incineration’s price as being too unreasonable by comparison.
The good news is, if you did make the most of the day, Incineration is worth it for all of us. But you really do have to make the most of it, including doing your research into the smaller artists, especially those rare sets coming from overseas. You also have to be spending lots of time at the bigger venues where the price tag is justified. Full respect to you if you’ll just spend time at the Black Heart because you love the grassroots UK bands, but the pricing doesn’t suggest you will. If you are attending but aren’t interested in a unique event like Blood Fire Death, admittedly a lot of your money isn’t going to the artists you’re attending for. Fundamentally, it’s way outside of the price where you can just take it ‘casually’. Perhaps it’s always been that way – it was £70 in 2024, which did not include the Roundhouse, which is still plenty to be spending. The silver lining is that the cost is one more great reason to do what we truly love: sinking our teeth deep into extreme metal, nerd out on a vast array of bands, all in the name of making every moment of the festival count. Getting more eyes, ears and feet on the ground for the likes of Grave Miasma, Of Feather and Bone, One of Nine and Tomb Mold is truly God’s work. We can’t wait to see what pearls they dredge up for 2027 – see you there.