Where would we be in life without our annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of the pint and the riff that is Desertfest London? Probably living a healthier lifestyle, with more reliably working ears and throats and remaining financially stable, that’s where. But where’s the fun in that? Exactly! So, off to Camden we go again… (Photos: Gaël Mathieu)
Friday 16th May
Who else could really be our opening band of the weekend? London Town’s very own Elephant Tree stride onto the stage like the local legends of heavy that they are and do not disappoint. Their uplifting, doomy, yet also melancholic brand of gorgeous sonic heft is as warm and creamy as a flat white on a sunny veranda. Jack’s stunning riffs marry with Pete’s mind-melting bass grooves, Sam’s totemic crashes and new boy Charlie’s wholesome guile on the likes of Sails, Bird and of course the enormous Aphotic Blues to audibly cuddle us with happiness into a weekend of joy.
Second up at the Ballroom is Oslo’s The Devil and the Almighty Blues. An all-encompassing bombast of psychedelic grooves and flows that certainly wouldn’t be out of place in either of Valhalla or New Orleans. Their groovy, caustic rock and soaring vocal lines push their vast soundscapes across the Electric Ballroom’s packed floor, illuminating their mythical mantras. Almighty by name, almighty by nature.
Need there more to be said about Lowrider? These Swedish Desertfest mainstays originally reunited for Desertfest London back in 2019 and they don’t show any sign of slowing down their Iodean Odes anytime soon. The mesmeric new banger And The Horse You Rode in On from their The Long Forever split record with Elephant Tree is the highlight for me of their barnstorming set as the beers fly, the riffs hurl and the good times a-roll. We all suitably bob our heads up and down to worship at the altar of Lowrider’s ever-mighty stoner shapes as they once again triumph triumphantly.
Speaking of Norway, Årabrot are back in the Desertfest fold once again and they waste little time mesmerising all those in attendance down in The Underworld. By now, their majestic brand of gothic noise-rock is almost as iconic as husband and wife duo Kjetil Nernes and Karin Park’s striking white stage costumes. Tonight’s treats featuring the likes of The World Must be Destroyed and Satan Tango remind everyone present just how beautiful and unique they always are.
Massachusetts’ finest Elder is a very special band for this festival and their third full-length album Lore is an incredibly special release for many in our wonderful scene. As it’s been ten years since this modern masterpiece’s release, why don’t we throw a party, bake a cake and celebrate by playing the whole damn thing in full?! Sound good? Well, it sure sounds unreal to us tonight as Nick DiSalvo leads us through the modern prog-psyche classics of Deadweight, Lore and of course the bouncing party stonk that is Compendium. Tonight is all about Elder, their love for this festival and this festival’s love for them.
Fittingly, they more than grow into this first headline slot at DF London, before bowing out with the glorious Halcyon and Dead Roots Stirring to see us all off back to the Black Heart already covered in grins and tasty heavy strength IPAs. What a Day 1. Let’s hit the beers, then hit the hay and get back up tomorrow for more, yay!
Saturday 17th May
Urgh, we’re back! Let’s get rehydrated and break our ears back in with Oxford’s humble-as-pie chaps Indica Blues on their Desertfest debut. This awesome foursome’s intelligent and grandiose blend of doom, folk and straight-up heavy psyche wins over plenty of new fans upstairs at The Black Heart this afternoon. The likes of new labyrinth The Raven and personal Pete favourite Inhale smooth out our creased ears and eyes just perfectly. Indica-tive of a great day ahead, methinks!
Konvent are utterly terrifying. Four Danish ladies hammering out the filthiest brand of caustic death-doom you can ever imagine to rattle the Roundhouse’s rafters in Desertfest’s most scenic venue on a beautiful sunny Saturday. Vocalist Rikki’s astonishingly low growls dominate their punishing soundscapes in a way that very few singers could master to such perfection. Oooof, this is a bit heavy and a bit good!
Conan are back again! A Desertfest mainstay band for many a year, Merseyside’s masters of caveman battle doom deliver another hour’s worth of succulently crafted utter, utter ragers. From the likes of oldie-but-goodie Satsumo to newer cuts from their brand new album Violence Dimension, the (none more) power trio riff the Roundhouse into oblivion and back again with projections of the band’s cartoon namesake creating an astonishing backdrop. Full marks to main man Jon Davis for repping his beloved Everton in (almost!) full kit mode too. Up the Toffees!
Pallbearer arrive very late in the day due to no fault of their own, but pull out all the stops to deliver their soaring doom melodies to the Roundhouse masses. Never a performance for the faint of heart, their crushing vocal lines and scything guitar work keep the heavy vibes a-flowin’, and then some.
After a swift pint and a pizza stop to keep us going, Amenra decimate the decibel reader within seconds of hitting the stage. The Belgian post-metal devastators are harrowingly dark, raw and riveting tonight as Colin H. van Eeckhout’s painful, crawling vocals and retching on-stage performance add a sense of terror, awe and danger to their mesmerising power. The captivating A Solitary Reign is a surefire highlight, bringing the beauty of trance to an otherwise furiously paced set.
Zeal & Ardor may not be what almost everyone here would call a classic Desertfest headliner, but tonight they bring something truly different, unique and special to our favourite Camden Town drinking party. Manuel Gagneux’s stunning project laces together black metal and several other crazy heavy subgenres, with Delta blues and spiritual African-American music. This punchy mash-up of sounds forms a tantalising display of truly stunning songcraft and explores avenues that no-one really to this day has perfected in analysing. Backed out now by a full band and harnessing multiple singers and vocal techniques, Z&A are perfect for the Roundhouse’s elegant stage and flatten the crowd repeatedly with the punching attack of Death to the Holy and Götterdämmerung. The colossal riffs and rhythmic gang chants merge as one to bring something genuinely new to this scene and so far beyond. This is certainly not for everyone, but for those who dare, Zeal & Ardor win for one and all.
We’re halfway back to the Black Heart for a pint or 700, but hey… What’s this? A street-side moshpit has opened up with punters practically headbanging through windows and into the road as Froglord rip the ever-overcrowded Dev a new one. The pounding They Came From Saturn is just about all I have time to catch through the sidewall as these up-and-coming amphibian-themed monstrous racketeers threaten the tiny pub venue’s brick, mortar and foundations. Do you like frogs? Hell yeah, we definitely do now!
A few dozen beverages and a Bill and Michelle Steer DJ set over at The Black Heart round off a brilliant evening of music for your Heavy Chronicles crew. What a night!
Sunday 18th May
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope. It’s a colossal hangover crash-landing right into your brain. That means you’re doing Desertfest right. So let’s grab our dark sunglasses, our earplugs and some super strength sugary drinks and get back on it…
Up until this very Sunday morning, your noble scribe, to his very shame, had never heard of Melbourne, Australia’s Khan before. A quick couple of tracks heard on a playlist changed this instantly and I headed straight for the Ballroom to soak up their whole set with zero disappointment. Wow. What a sound! What confidence! What comfort in each other’s styles! And what a happy bunch of lads they were! Stunning psychedelic ebbs and flows coupled with cruising, crashing waves of riffs lap at the sunny shores as the classic three-piece tear into glorious soundscapes atop enchanting sky valleys. This was a set to remember for all of the right reasons and the Desertfest faithful roared them off stage to an enormous cheer. More please!!
The aircon is broken down in The Underworld today and it’s already hotting up down there as Tuscan riff raiders Mr.Bison start to kick out the jams down under. The Italian foursome waste little time in meshing together psych rock, big doomy riffs, soaring solos, frazzling guitar work and tantalising vocals to help us get our sweat on in what is increasingly beginning to feel like an actual indoor desert. This sure is a tasty second appetiser in our day, mostly full to the brim with psych and prog textures.
I only catch a short amount of Norway’s Dunbarrow, but I like what I hear and with flashy dress shirts like those boys are rockin’, I like what I see too! A retro rocking, riff-strutting mob, this five-piece knows how to dance and groove like it’s a 1979 car chase through the downtown streets of daring, dusty London. The crowd isn’t the strongest of the day, but the ‘barrow does not go underappreciated this afternoon. Ending on a rollicking cover of Rocky Eriksson’s “Two-Headed Dog”, Dunbarrow provides us a nice straight-up edge to an otherwise dust-swirling day.
Man, oh man, have I been excited to catch the UK debut show from Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol! The Austin, Texas trio have a sound that’s hard to pigeonhole, but let’s go with “Big Dumb Riffs” as a lead descriptor as they whip up a pit or seventeen in an increasingly furnace-like Underworld. Crashing out short sharp bangers like Clowntown, Body Bag and 1800-EAT-SHIT, they quickly rampage through the majority of their latest album entitled, errrr, Big Dumb Riffs, before taking a sideways lean into their older, moodier, bluesier side. Ending on the tasty trio of Grease Beast, Gravedigger and of course the mighty The Cincinnati Tilt, no brow is left un-sweated and no head is left un-banged by this quirky, crunchy, relish-slobbered mob.
A dash back over to The Electric Ballroom sees Slift do what Slift do best. With more energy emanating from this white hot threesome’s thrashing members than most bands collectively could show in a lifetime, they treat us to cosmic blast after sonic lightwave over a blistering hour-long set. The crowd goes wildest for older numbers like the Ummon title-track. But in reality, these French cosmonauts never take their feet off the accelerator of their kaleidoscope-powered rocket ship once tonight as they hurtle around the Desertfest galaxy and crash land back onto planet Earth.
Speaking of Earth, the Washington-based drone rockers are tonight’s headliner. Settling in at an entirely different pace to the likes of Slift and RBBP before them, Dylan Carlson takes good time to introduce his band members to the audience, to remind us of what this scene is about and what it all means to them before they launch into ninety minutes of slow, mournful yet melodic and encaptivating psyche and drone rock. The songs are slow, they are repetitive and they are beautiful, as Carlson leads us through lullabies that more than paralyse for the zillionth time in Earth’s varied, highly regarded and distinguished career. This is how it’s done.
Yours truly simply cannot take one more breath in that smouldering hot Underworld to be able to check out Dopelord and London’s finest Black Sabbath tribute act Electric Funeral (I am so, so sorry lads!) and so I think it’s time to call it a night… Wait, one more trip to The Black Heart, you ask? Oh, go on then!
The finest rock n’ roll DJ that Coventry has ever known, Mr Rich Harris, is back behind those famous decks (laptop!) as we settle in for our last few hevvy bevvies and dance the night away, whilst reminiscing about our favourite moments of the last few days. It’s times like this that I am again reminded that this wonderful festival is not about the bands, the beers, the hangovers, the bangovers, the running between venues, the dodgy late night food, the lack of sleep, the endless talking nonsense, the laughter or the twenty newly acquired black t-shirts. No, it’s about the people. The most beautiful, crazy people you can think of and their incredible friendships, new and old. Ah, who are we kidding?! It’s about all of those things and so much more!
Right! That’s it, we’re all off home to crawl into the bin. Cheers to everyone who helps make this weekend what it is: you rule. See you in 2026! — Your THC crew
Last modified: 3 June 2025
