Spoiler alert: it’s rad.

Admittedly, that was the case in August, when this year’s Rain City Doom Fest — set for Dec. 12-13 in Seattle, Washington — made its initial announcement, with Acid King and Ragana and Merlock and sundry others confirmed at that time. But more of a good thing is a better thing, and with the complete picture of how those two days will look, it’s not hard to imagine seeing the bill and wanting to make the trip. Wherever you might be traveling from, from Mizmor to Kadabra, Hippie Death Cult, Sorcia, Sun Crow, Serial Hawk, Glasghote, Ragana and the relocated-from-the-desert Red Mesa, you’ll not be likely to find a richer sampling of the Pacific Northwest’s native underground — plus Acid King and Electric Citizen, from CA and Ohio, respectively — and if you wanted to cap the utter awfulness of 2025 with something decidedly less than awful, well, here you go.

To answer the question no one asked, no, I’m not likely to be there, but it still makes for a welcome escapist daydream for my afternoon, and for that I’m grateful. I’m not sure it needs to be said, but the below comes from social media, and I’ve left the atsign profile tags intact in case you’re on your phone and can use them to magically transport yourself to the bands’ pages or whatever. I assure you, I have no clue how any of that works, on the rare occasion it does. Killer bill, regardless.

Check it:

RAIN CITY DOOM FEST 2025 – Full line-up officially announced!

Ticket link: https://app.opendate.io/e/rain-city-doom-fest-december-12-2025-625223

@raincitydoomfest
December 12 + 13 at @elcorazonseattle / @funhouseseattle
2 stages | 18 bands | 2 nights of DOOM
2-day passes (limited) and single day tix on sale NOW! 🎟️🔗 in bio

@acidkingrocks
@raganaofficial
@whollydoomedblackmetal
@electriccitizenband
@tithe.pdx
@hippiedeathcultband
@kadabra_band
@serialhawk
@reburied_death
@sorciaband
@sun.crow.rock.heavy
@glasghote_pdx
@mother_root
@redmesaband
@merlocklives
@heldscalla_band
@ravine.pdx

Also, a very special Ozzy tribute set by Wizards of Oz feat. members of @witch_ripper, @un.vibes, @filthiseternal and @girlsnfnroses

Presented by @metalshopkisw_
Poster by @_brainkim

https://wl.eventim.us/event/rain-city-doom-fest-2025/660391?afflky=ElCorazon
https://www.instagram.com/raincitydoomfest/

Ragana, Desolation’s Flower (2025)

Acid King, Live at Desertfest Belgium, Oct. 19, 2025

Granted, you had me at Acid King, and that’s pretty much always going to be the case forever and into perpetuity. HOWEVER, even putting aside that singularity-type draw, to have Witch Mountain, the black metallers Ragana, Electric Citizen (who I just saw and were killer), Hippie Death Cult (get well soon, Laura, sidelined for now with an unspecified health issue), Merlock (who I seem to recall seeing had new stuff in the works, including with a cello), Kadabra, Red Mesa (now at least partially relocated to the Pacific Northwest) and Glasghote, well, that’s a really good bill front to back.

This is just the first announcement for the Seattle-based Rain City Doom Fest 2025. I assume Sorcia will be added as they’re affiliated with the fest and are something of a house band, and there are others who’ve been regulars along the way, but yeah. I don’t know how much flights to Seattle are two weeks before Xmas, but this does very much make me want to find out.

Of course, there are no shortage of others in and around the region to fill out the bill, but whoever’s going to be added, I’d call this the proverbial killer start. I doubt I’ll get to see it — ain’t nobody banging down my door to bring me to Seattle for a thing, and that’s reasonable — but maybe you will, and that’s pretty rad.

Info follows as cobbled from social media:

RAIN CITY DOOM FEST 2025!

December 12 + 13 at @elcorazonseattle / @funhouseseattle

2 stages | 18 bands | 2 nights of DOOM

1st round of bands announced today, full lineup to be announced in September! 2-day passes on sale NOW for $40 + fees: https://wl.eventim.us/event/rain-city-doom-fest-2025/660391?afflky=ElCorazon

First wave of bands:
ACID KING
RAGANA
WITCH MOUNTAIN
ELECTRIC CITIZEN
HIPPIE DEATH CULT
KADABRA
GLASGHOTE
RED MESA
MERLOCK

…AND MANY MORE!

Poster by @_brainkim

https://wl.eventim.us/event/rain-city-doom-fest-2025/660391?afflky=ElCorazon
https://www.instagram.com/raincitydoomfest/

Acid King, Live at Reggies, Chicago, Illinois, Aug. 28, 2024

First of all, this lineup is pretty badass. This year’s Rain City Doom Fest was originally billed as the release show for the new Year of the Cobra LP, but my understanding is the album has been delayed. It’s great, keep an ear out for it. In any case, the Seattle two-piece are still playing, alongside Bell Witch, who’ll headline in their particular morose, crawling, consuming fashion, and The Well, who will trek up from Austin as they do from time to time, presumably to remind everybody in attendance how fucking underrated they are. Those three alone make it quite an evening.

Those three also rest at and near the top of a 10-band bill with Ape Machine, Sorcia, Sun Crow and others showcasing from Washington/the Pacific Northwest, and the uniting factor is heavy as two stages play out over the course of one packed evening. This is the fourth year of the fest — I thought it was five, but I recall being very wrong about that last year — and it’s set for Dec. 14 at El Corazon and Funhouse. I don’t anticipate being in that part of the world at the , but it would be one to see if you are.

The PR wire has details:

Rain City Doom Fest announces lineup for this years festival in Seattle on December 14th!!

2 stages, 10 bands, One night of Doom.

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 8/30!
https://wl.seetickets.us/event/bell-witch/616791?afflky=ElCorazon

Rain City Doom Fest 2024 will be held at El Corazon/Funhouse in Seattle on December 14. This is the 4th year of this annual festival that showcases heavy music of the PNW and beyond. This year’s lineup will include some of the Seattle areas most esteemed active doom bands including Bell Witch, and Year of the Cobra who will be making this show their album release party. The festival is also pleased to welcome The Well as special guests from Austin, TX.

For more than a decade, Bell Witch have sent tides surging over the seawalls of the song form, unraveling conventional expectations about the ways music stations itself in time to absorb a listener’s attention.

Dynamic duo Amy and Jon Barrysmith make up the doom-y twosome that is Year of the Cobra, a Seattle-based sludge metal band. Moaning vocals accent what reeks of Black Sabbath coming back through a long, dark tunnel. The rippling hums of Amy’s ever-expanding bassy tones are complimented by the dynamics in Jon’s drumming, shifting effortless from laid back grooves to pushing, driving climaxes. Amy’s easy voice over Jon’s steady splashing lulls you in, only to hit you with the surprise, brutal left-hook!

A heavy psych rock/proto-metal power trio based out of Austin, Texas, The Well’s lethal blend of knotty prog, punk, and bluesy doom rock invokes names like Black Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Sleep, and Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats. Citing a desire “to blend different musical styles as diversified as Joy Division to Blue Cheer”, the band, which consists of Ian Graham, Lisa Alley, and Jason Sullivan, came together in 2012 out of a shared love for extreme music, cult horror films, and dark mysticism.

Completing this incredible lineup are some of Pacific North West’s finest doom bands. Each bringing their unique twist on the genre:

Witch Ripper

Washington’s WITCH RIPPER have seamlessly welded together the contemporary heaviness of such hard-hitting acts as MASTODON, GOJIRA, and BARONESS with the anthemic bombast of classic artists in the vein of QUEEN and DAVID BOWIE from the start.

Slow Goat

Gamy riffs cut from the flank of the Pacific Northwest

Ape Machine

The name APE MACHINE is a nod to the days of reel-to-reel magnetic tape audio recording; a fitting moniker for the heavy-hitting quartet as the band plays through vintage tube amplifiers and lays down its songs using exclusively throwback quality studio equipment.

Sorcia

SORCIA hails from the Snoqualmie Valley in the backwoods of Seattle, Washington. Combining blues-laden groovy riffs, heavy doom and raw grunge with the added dynamic of dual vocals, they deliver their own method of Pacific Northwest stoner sludge metal.

Sun Crow

Rain-soaked doom blues, moss-covered stoner rock, grey sky heavy psych, whatever they call it, SUN CROW summons the old spirits of high volume heavy rock into close quarters and paints the ceiling and walls with magnets, wood, and glass.

Melancholia

True to its name, MELANCHOLIA explores dread and anguish in all of its malformed glory through the lenses of crushing doom/sludge, ferocious black metal/death metal and raw, primitive crust punk.

Mother Root

Two brothers making noise in the backwoods of the Snoqualmie Valley.

https://wl.seetickets.us/event/bell-witch/616791?afflky=ElCorazon
https://www.instagram.com/raincitydoomfest

Bell Witch, Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate (2023)

An all-dayer set for Saturday, Dec. 16, at El Corazon and Funhouse in Seattle, Washington, Rain City Doom Fest was announced late last week by the bands. There are eight of those, which is probably plenty, considering you’ve got Matt Pike bringing his Pike vs. the Automaton solo band through with direct support from Witch Ripper and Mos Generator. Un, Sorcia, Sun Crow, Grim Earth and Mother Root round out, and if you know all of those bands or you don’t — Sorcia in July put out a record called Lost Season (review here); Witch Ripper gleaned fervent hyperbole around their The Flight After the Fall (review here) this Spring; Sun Crow are working toward their next LP; the list goes on — but if I’ve earned any trust in the last 14 years, I hope maybe you’ll take my word for it when I say it’s a solid lineup between established and newer acts, and that I hope it continues to be a regular thing.

Because a homegrown heavy fest isn’t anything to sneeze at and it’s not easy to put together, learning many invariably crucial lessons the only way they can be learned: by doing the thing. I didn’t know it when I first posted the lineup, but Jessica Brasch of Sorcia books this one and it’s been going for three years. This is the first time it will be at two venues — I think — and it remains a killer bill.

Have at it:

El Corazon & The Funhouse present:

RAIN CITY DOOM FEST 2023

2 stages, 8 bands. Showcasing some of the heaviest music in the PNW and beyond.

Pike Vs The Automaton
Witch Ripper
Mos Generator
Un
Sorcia
Sun Crow
Grim Earth
Mother Root

Saturday, Dec. 16

Doors @ 6pm | Show @ 7pm
$20 ADV | $25 DOS | 21+

(#127903#)️ on sale Friday 10/13 at 9am

Poster: Brian Kim

Event page: https://facebook.com/events/s/rain-city-doom-fest-2023/1021960045617875/

Sorcia, Lost Season (2023)