Conan. Photo by Paul Quinn

Opening up this latest night in the attic of Manchester’s ‘Old Lady’, the UK’s biggest Doom secret laid waste to a criminally small gathering. Download Festival sadly took the country’s photographers away from the crushing, hypnotic groove that is Leeds’ Corinth; Ben Corkhill and Tom Clayton roaring out, the former painting Post-Black leads through a titanic swamp of bludgeoning power and monolithic rhythms, his fellow protagonists looking out laconically as if they had no idea of the monstrous effect of their sound. One day, and it’s coming, these will be the new darlings of the Low-end. They are THAT good.

With a laptop centre-stage, and cavernous crashes of bass and distorted riffs either side, Birmingham’s Khost held court between those who didn’t understand it, and the majority who were mesmerised by the cacophonous, spectral sounds. The duo appeared like a hooded, homeless Godflesh, boys from the gutters of Piccadilly, but their crashing ambient power was impossible to ignore. The intermittent entry of bass notes over the cascading squall was positively bowel-clearing. A staggering, imploding feedback of Industrial noise, I could have walked away at this point knowing I’d seen the most important metal gig in Manchester for years.

Picking up my shattered nerves, I predicted that the occasionally more pedestrian Psych-Doom of Stoke’s Space Witch would be dull in comparison. Sequencer Peter Callaghan is often the sole focal point yet they turned out to be the most animated band of the evening; their booming, spaced-out grooves maintaining interest without the spark of the previous two bands. More powerful than I’ve seen them before however, the crowd were bewitched and, loving the pounding oscillations, seemingly forgot everything that had gone before.

Conan is the most crushing experience you’ll ever have live. Jon Davis delivered screams from a small stage that may as well have been the tip of Everest, his pulverising riffs threatening to destroy part of the city. Latest drummer Rich Lewis was mobile, frighteningly powerful, eviscerating his kit with unfettered ferocity whilst the building buckled under the titanic mass of ‘Total Conquest’. Captivating, oppressive, yet hypnotic, it’s impossible to convey the effect this band have in a live setting. The whole night was one obliterating, skin-itching, unfathomable blow to the soul after another; but with closer ‘Satsumo’, the headliners proved themselves an indescribable, barrelling monstrosity. In a Mancunian attic, a church for support musicians and fans alike, sometimes weight is everything.

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PAUL QUINN