Kudos to British doomly upstarts Undersmile and to Serpent Venom as well. Both bands were announced as additions to the Hammerfest set to take place next year in North Wales. To put that to scale, Saint Vitus and Killing Joke have also been tapped for the Metal Hammer-sponsored event, and the likes of Candlemass and Enslaved were already on the bill, so, you know, not exactly small potatoes.

Future Noise Booking sent notice down the PR wire of good stuff happening to good bands:

We’re ecstatic to announce that Undersmile & Serpent Venom, 2 bands which feature on Future Noise booking roster, have been added to Hammerfest 2013 which takes place at Haven Hafan y Môr Holiday Park, Pwllheli, Gwynedd, North Wales on the weekend of the 14th/15th/16th March 2013.

The recent announcement also included confirmation of Killing Joke to headline the Friday while Doom legends Saint Vitus were also confirmed to play.

Hammerfest talent booker Seven Webster says…
“To have both Killing Joke and Saint Vitus join our bill is a personal career highlight for me, as I have followed Killing Joke since their inception, and they have never failed to impress To also have Saint Vitus play Hammerfest, who are an act we have always wanted to have grace the stage the cake on what I believe is one of our best line-ups to date.”

With only 47 rooms left at the time the original announcement was made, we suggest you get your tickets now, more info and the full line up can be found at www.hammerfest.co.uk or you can call the ticket hotline on 08700 110034.

When it comes to rendering true traditional doom — like when it comes to flying with umbrellas or shutting down airports due to volcanic ash floated over from Iceland — there are some things the British just do better. Enter London outfit Serpent Venom, whose self-titled demo takes the post-St. Vitus doom that has made The Gates of Slumber catch on so well with their last couple albums and strips it down even further, offering three songs of pure Sabbathian darkness partnered with a ritualistic feel that most American bands (I won’t say all) fail to capture properly.

Of the three songs on the disc (all of which are available for listening on the band’s MySpace), not a one of them is under six and a half minutes, the shortest being “Under the Compass” at 6:28. Both “The Outsider” and “Four Walls of Solitude” — the place to start — top eight minutes, with the latter going all the way to 9:20. So, at nearly 24 minutes, Serpent Venom is a healthy cut of an EP, and the professional recording job only brings out even more the character and mission of the band. Each time guitarist Pete pulls a Dave Chandler-type note and holds it out before cycling through the riff again, it’s hard not to smile. His fuzz-caked lead tone is another highlight of the demo, when and where it comes up.

Vocalist Gaz (no, not Cathedral‘s guitarist; a different Gaz) gives a where-the-hell-did-he-come-from kind of performance, making me wonder in what bands he’s been hiding all this time. His voice has the perfect warble for this kind of doom and is set just far back enough in the mix to give a yelling-across-the-abyss feel. He mostly follows the melodies as laid out by the guitar, but it utterly capable in that regard and lacking nothing in either talent or knowing when to sit back and let the music take over. Each track winds up with an energy all its own, and the demo is one of the strongest I’ve heard in some time in its genre. I can’t imagine these dudes won’t be signed, say, by the time this post is finished, but in the meantime, they’re definitely worth keeping on the radar.