Diaries of Doom

Ascendancy Promotions bought Doom Over Birmingham to the Midlands in March, setting a murky atmosphere over The Flapper with a varied lineup that had much to offer for fans of the low and slow. Drawing an impressive crowd in Birmingham as the clear result of hard work promoting the show, the room is full of people very early on in the evening, with the whole event genuinely feeling like the place to be for supporters of underground live music. After openers Suffering, my first band of the night was Tumanduumband , who I've seen many times over the years. Flanked by corpses onstage and with a Satanic aesthetic, they get heads nodding away in rhythm with their dark, hazy doom metal. With setlist staples like Throne Of Grief and Dread Lord shaking the venue's foundations, they know how to use the simple power of the riff to devastating effect, using just a bass guitar and a drum kit to deconstruct doom down to its very core. They're followed by the elegant, dramatic funeral...

Back with their second album and a revitalised lineup, Bradford quartet Ironrat - consisting of members of Wolves In Winter, Lazarus Blackstar, Psychlona, Hollow Earth, and former members of Monolith Cult and Khang - have produced a real statement of intent with Beneath It All, their first record since 2015. My introduction to them was at Bloodstock Festival in 2017, with tracks like the low-tuned Weed Machine (which was re-recorded in 2023) sticking out in my memory. However, as circumstance would have it, Ironrat had a quieter spell for a few years, but the boys are firmly back in town with forty minutes of power, melody, riffs and groove. Kicking off with high octane rock and roll attitude, title track Beneath It All gets the record spinning with a simple guitar riff that sets the tone nicely. Its energy is clearly designed for live shows, before the song develops and drops into a slower stoner blues breakdown, given character with some vocal harmonisations, before the fist pumpi...