Depravation Festival Easter Warmup
Depravation Festival Easter Warmup
The Victoria – Swindon
Saturday 19th April 2025
Review by Mare Grills
Following the success of ‘Depravation Festival’ back in September, some of the bands came back to Swindon to give us a real Easter treat – along with some extra treasures. Martin Camp, one of the organisers of Depravation Festival, provided us with an outstanding afternoon and evening of Metal nestled within ‘VicFest’, an annual event hosted and put on by The Victoria which covered four days over the Easter Weekend. Sadly I could only make the Saturday – there were some cracking bands of various genres that I would love to have seen. Chris Middleton was the Sound guy for the evening, except for Raging Speedhorn who travel with their own guy.
The Victoria is an intimate venue with a capacity of around 200, and has been the home to live music for as long as I can remember – and I’m OLD. It’s a great pub, inclusive and friendly with a real ‘family’ feel to it. The actual venue is downstairs with a relatively small stage that has hosted some real greats over the years. I was fortunate enough to see the late Paul D’Anno there in August, which was amazing and now very poignent. It was the only place in Swindon that my late husband Keymo actually loved and we had some brilliant nights there.
This time my gig buddies (or ‘Carers’ as they consider themselves) were my daughter Kathy and her partner Jordan, and in this instance they were right. I had left my phone at home (with my ticket on it) so I had to borrow hers, and only had a scrap of paper, a pen and the ability to write very small for notes. Luckily the management knew how dopey I am, and that I’d bought my ticket, so let me in.
Onto the show…
Phantom Droid
The first band to delight those of us who turned up on the dot of the doors opening was a three piece who gave us some great heavy, doomy, sludgy riffs with some lovely melodic guitar. The lead singer, James Hammerlock, resplendent in an impressive make-up job and outfit, was everything you’d want to hear. There were growly and screamy bits and some deeply mournful sounding bits. They played five songs for the set, beginning with ‘Grief Manifold’, storming their way through ‘Dungeon Creep’, ‘The First King’ and ‘Anima Sola’, winding up with ‘Everworm’. Luke Clemenger on guitar gave a very accomplished and polished performance and Robbie Dee on drums made up the whole of a very tight band. They describe themselves as’ Psycho-delic Doom’ which I think is a good description. Their set was a pleasure to listen to and after all that, they’d hidden Easter Eggs too – yay.
They have a couple of gigs in Bristol lined up and (happy me), they’re playing Depravation Festival near Swindon in September whoop whoop Links below so that you can check them out.
Froglord
Well – this was a surprise!
The Lord of Amphibians gave an amazing visual and musical performance, it sounded Doomy, but with a lighter side. Imagine Booker T and the MG’s doing Doom Metal (ask your dad or Alexa). The Frog Lord had great stage presence and put in a wonderful performance, humorous and strangely Prog. There were some really funky riffs as well as the occasional wall of amphibian sounds. I can’t tell you what was on the set list, I was too enthralled to write the names of the songs down which were all introduced, something I really appreciate. ‘Die by the Slime’ and ‘Frog Satan’ were both great, solid and heavy with great guitar – overall it was a great set which I enjoyed immensely.
These guys are really busy with the upcoming launch of their fifth album ‘Metamorphosis’ (get your tickets – I can’t go sadly), and a tour that sees them gigging up to Scotland and then back again. I will definitely be keeping an eye open for them in the future and hope to see them again soon. Oh, and Freddo’s – there were hidden Freddo’s .
Pantheïst
In my notes it says “Space Doom Opera”. This Cardiff band are extremely talented musically, and the voice of the ethereal lady singer is unbelievable, with soaring vocals juxtaposed by the lower timbre of the male keyboard player. An atmospheric, almost cathedral-like sound is underpinned by Heavy Metal guitar, dums and growly vocals and a very theatrical presentation; it was amazing. The set was really well received however I really needed to eat so had to skip out mid-set.
I was so impressed though that I will be saving them up for when I feel like hearing a glorious celebration of sensational, beautiful vocals and metal meshed to form something lovely – their album ‘Kings Must Die’, will be right there.
Thrashatouille
One of my favourite live bands rocked the Vic with ‘UK Chef Metal’. They played at Depravation Festival in September on the second stage and bless him, Martin invited them back! Hailing from Northwich in Cheshire, this cheeky, exuberant ‘over the top’ band powered through a great set of food related songs. Rob Sutton (Pastry Chef), is a great frontman, involving the audience, telling the back stories of the songs and is an energetic and accomplished performer. Starting with ‘Shepherds Pie’, they went into a new song, ‘You Wok Mate?’ when the first pit of the day opened up at 1913hrs (I only noted the time because it was unusually early outside of Bloodstock). ‘The Mis-Steak’ was next, with a great introduction, followed by ‘Pulled Apart by Pork’, complete with an inflatable doughnut pit (yep – the usual suspect Jordan Bridges let out to play again) was great fun as usual.
Finishing up with my personal favourite ‘Don’t Stick your dick in a Pasty’ along with the hilarious back story, really had the crowd going and joining in at full voice. Do check them out if they are playing near you – it’s always a fun night and the music is great too. With James Gerber (Sous Chef) on guitar, Dan Brown (Pot Wash) on drums and Chris Hargreaves (Head Chef) on bass they cook up a tasty treat of Metal.
Ramage Inc.
I’d not heard of this Scottish band before, but there was a buzz among the crowd about the prospect of seeing them live, well before their set.
Fronted by Bryan Ramage, the band was fantastic, epic, progressive, heavy, loud, great drums and in lead vocalist Mr Ramage, there is an amazing voice. They are sooooo tight with a slightly sinister sound. The belting bass and great timing skips, the whole band was impeccable and the looks on the faces of the audience as I scanned the room confirmed what I was thinking. Nobody wanted it to finish and it was too good to miss by going to get more beer. The whole performance was a series of belters and I will definitely be seeing them again.
It was an outstanding set.
Their latest album, released towards the end of 2023, ‘Humanity Has Failed’, is available on all good streaming platforms!
Broken Jaw
And now for my second helping of Broken Jaw in two days (technically 24 hours) as they had played the Tap & Tumbler in Nottingham on Friday night (this ol’ girl gets about a bit).
This Punk Metal band from Gloucestershire is joyously unrestrained, frantic, fast and bonkers. Fronted by Nutzie, they play mad songs at breakneck speed while making it look effortless (except Nutzie, who just moves too far and too fast for it to look effortless). Sam and John on 7 string guitars and Josh on a 5 string bass with Sean on drums (not his own kit this time, there’s barely room on the stage for his) put out a wall of frenetic sound for songs such as ‘Chicken Nugs’, ‘Pineapple Pizza’, and the title track of their latest album ‘No-OnE cArEs’. Included in the set were the songs ‘Jake and Elwood’, which I love, ‘Parasites Delight’, ‘Sapientism’, ‘Melt’ and ‘KC Shuffle’ from previous recorded offerings.
In their words, ‘Too Punk to be Metal, Too Metal to be Punk’, yet again they put on a super sonic performance, highly entertaining, highly enjoyable and nuts. There were a few issues with the sound but the joy of watching them over-rode that for me. A band that even if the audience comes to them – they just get in the middle anyway and have a blast.
Raging Speedhorn
As soon as the first note was played there was an immediate Mosh Pit. Punky, Sludgy Metal sounding just fantastic, and it didn’t stop. Speedhorn were in total control of the room. There were quite a few people who had sadly missed out on the rest of the day because they had only turned up for the Headliner but notwithstanding what they had missed – this was golden.
I didn’t write anything down, I was too busy dipping in and out of the Pit (much to Kathy’s chagrin, and she has photographic evidence), and loving every minute of the set. After headlining Depravation Festival in September, I am so happy that they came back to Swindon to give us another opportunity to see them locally. Their performance was gritty, full on and brilliant. It was a joy to see everyone singing along word for word and having a blast.
Thank you for coming back.
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