Nordic legends In The Woods... return for Doom Over London VI

Having thrilled lovers of all things slow, hard and heavy with Doom Over London V last April, the shadowy figures behind the festival are gearing up for the sixth incarnation with an expanded lineup – now covering three days, three stages and around 40 bands – and the first of many announcements that will cast a ray of light into even the most morose of hearts.

Still based in Tufnell Park, Doom Over London has now added the Aces & Eights venue to The Dome and Boston Music Rooms, with a new pre-show on March 25 and the main event taking place on March 26-27, 2016, and we are thrilled to announce that that DOL will be hosting one of the underground’s most eagerly awaited reunions, the return of Norway’s In The Woods…, playing an exclusive UK show for the first time since their split in 2000. One of the first bands to use the term ‘pagan metal’, In The Woods… were a very different proposition to the bands now gathered under that umbrella. Doomy, pastoral and avant-garde, their albums were free-roaming yet immersive testaments to nature that have since passed into metal lore, and with a new album in the works, their return is going to be as much a source of revelation as it will be of tear-jerking remembrance.

Also announced are Ireland’s death-doom warriors Mourning Beloveth, Belgian downtuned instrumentalists Sardonis, complete with grooves that sound like rusted massive anchor-chains being dragged over the seabed and compatriots Bathsheba, whose glacial, mystic air is intoxicated by similar, incense-heavy vapours to Jex Thoth. Also playing are Spanish vassals of string-laden funeral doom, Autumnal, the Netherlands’ Officium Triste, a band whose vivid funereal grandeur is akin to bleeding out while the LSD kicks in, and Ireland’s Malthusian, whose black, death and doom influences sound as though they’re fighting it out amongst the lower pits of Hell.

With many more bands to be announced, Doom Over London VI looks set to be one of the heaviest and enrapturing festivals of the year. A small number of Early Bird tickets are available now for a mere £29.50 so head here for tickets, and check out the Doom Over London Facebook page here!

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.