Richard HolmesDevastator’s Seven Dates Of Hell tour is now over. And Rushonrock’s Rich Holmes has barely recovered. Here’s what went down…
“It was like going back to the 80s,” grinned one fan following Devastator’s Fortress Festival set.
And indeed it was.
Losing yourself in the cathartic embrace of high-octane thrash. Raising your fist in jubilation as another speed metal blitzkrieg hit. Nothing too cerebral. No drawn-out intros or convoluted, virtuoso fretwork. Just blazing riffs and songs about Satan, blood, guts and goats.
Glorious.
What more do you need in life?
A fest like Fortress, however, would have been inconceivable four decades ago. Especially one held in a magnificent Victorian spa on the North Yorkshire coast.
Indeed, back when a youthful Quorthon was being pilloried in Kerrang!, few could have guessed Bathory’s acolytes would be descending on sunny Scarborough in 2025, tucking into fry-ups and Goth burgers like corpsepainted seagulls.
But that’s the 2020s for you.
Extreme metal feels bigger than ever. Damnation is pulling thousands of people to an arena in Manchester. Promoters like Reaper Agency and Byker Grave Bookings are selling out shows across the North. Incineration set London ablaze in May.
And Derby’s Devastator are one of the bands leading the pack.
Their tour with Portland’s Bewitcher, which saw the band rampaging across Britain in a jet black minibus, has been a landmark.
Yes, signing to French label Listenable Records in ’23 and dropping Conjurers of Cruelty were major steps up.
But if you’re going to get ‘big’ playing blackened Motörthrash, you need to slay on stage. Just ask Hellripper’s James McBain, whose turned a bedroom project into a Europe-conquering metal machine, bristling with flying-Vs.
And by Christ, Devastator do slay on stage.
Rushonrock’s first taste of the band came in 2019, when they supported Aussies Vomitor and veteran deathsters Blasphemer in a Tyneside basement bar. The hadn’t even released their debut album, Baptised in Blasphemy, at that point. Our take? “A firestorm of early Bathory and embryonic, hyperspeed deutsche thrash”.
Fast forward to May 26, 2025, and Devastator are going toe to toe with Bewitcher in The Cluny, one of Newcastle’s most famous independent venues.
It’s an incendiary set.
The quartet burn through tracks like Walpurgisnacht and Spiritual Warfare, aglow with primal power. Tom Collings’ face is obscured by a goat’s skull atop his mic stand. From where we’re standing, it looks like his head. It’s fitting. The scythe is a nice touch too.
Shredder Richard Batemen, in shades and flowing locks, is the band’s Fast Eddie. The guy has serious chops. Chris Whitehurst nails down those riffs with bloody glee, J Scarlett dropping the nuclear percussion behind him.
The Cluny is just ten minutes away from where Venom recorded Welcome to Hell, Black Metal and At War With Satan. It’s a point not lost on Collings, whose snarling rasp graces a blistering cover of Witching Hour. Understandably, it’s greeted with pure joy.
Five days later and all hell is breaking loose again in Scarborough Spa’s Ocean Room, as Devastator repeat the feat, emboldened by dates in Nottingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Bournemouth.
Moshing and circle pits are a rare sight at Fortress, and in many ways, this band are an outlier on its bill. But the energy surges back and forth from crowd to stage, as Howling Night and Worship The Goat detonate, and everyone loses their shit, beer and hearing. Lemmy would surely have been raising a jack and coke to Death Forever, if he’d been propping up the bar. It’s exhilarating. Visceral. Life-affirming.
Fortress was a huge moment, at the end of a really big week, for Devastator.
And they came, saw and conquered.
Now where’s that Nurofen…
Check out our Best Metal Punk and Black Thrash Albums of 2024 – featuring Devastator – here.