Reverb Revival: Derby’s First Doom Festival Is Coming to The Victoria Inn

Things are about to get considerably heavier in Derby. Riff Riot Promotions have announced Reverb Revival Fest, a new two-day festival dedicated to doom, psych and all things fuzz, taking over The Victoria Inn on 23 and 24 January 2027.

Billed as Derby’s first doom festival, Reverb Revival will bring 14 bands to one stage across two days, pulling together artists from across the UK underground for a weekend of enormous riffs, psychedelic noise, stoner rock and some considerably darker sounds.

Riff Riot describe it as two days of “pure heavy fuzz, satanic, psychdoom”, which probably tells you most of what you need to know. If you like your riffs slow, loud and capable of rattling several nearby buildings, January suddenly has something worth leaving the house for.

14 bands descend on Derby

The first Reverb Revival line-up brings together a sizeable cross-section of the UK’s underground doom scene, with Outback, Trippy Wicked, Druidess, Dungeon, Tumanduumband, Purple Kong and Cosmic Filth among the names heading to Derby.

They’re joined by Ritual Smoke, Tellemahookah, Ghrul, Satangelist, Empire of Dust, Witches of Mortuary and Amon Acid, completing a 14-band bill spread across the Saturday and Sunday.

It is a line-up that stretches beyond straightforward doom too. There are elements of stoner rock, psychedelia, sludge and heavy fuzz running throughout the weekend, which should give Reverb Revival enough variety without wandering too far away from its central mission of making The Victoria Inn very, very loud.

There are some names familiar to Derby audiences among the bill too. Ghrul continue their rise within the local heavy scene, while Tellemahookah are already returning to the city for Riff Riot’s Devilish Nights in Derby this September. Reverb Revival gives both another opportunity to appear alongside a much wider selection of bands from the UK underground.

A new festival for Derby’s heavy music scene

Putting 14 bands into a grassroots venue across an entire weekend is a considerable step up from promoting a single gig. It also shows the ambition behind what Riff Riot have been building in Derby.

The promoter has been steadily putting on hardcore, punk, metal and alternative shows around the city, including events at Dubrek and The Victoria Inn, mixing touring bands with local artists and giving some of the heavier corners of underground music a regular home in Derby.

Reverb Revival takes that idea and makes it considerably bigger. Rather than a handful of bands for an evening, this is a full weekend dedicated to one broad corner of heavy music, bringing audiences and artists into Derby from further afield while putting local bands onto the same bill.

The Victoria Inn feels like the right home for it too. Grassroots festivals work best when there isn’t a huge separation between the artists and the audience, and putting everything onto one stage means nobody has to spend the weekend making painful clashes between bands they wanted to see.

One stage. Fourteen bands. No running between venues. Just an increasingly large amount of fuzz.

Early bird tickets are on sale now

Riff Riot have initially released just 60 weekend tickets, with early bird passes priced at £25 plus booking fees until 1 September. After that, weekend tickets increase to £35.

For two full days and 14 bands, £25 makes the early bird ticket particularly good value, especially for anyone already following the UK doom, stoner and psychedelic underground.

Individual timings and the split between Saturday and Sunday are still to come, but with the complete line-up already out there, Reverb Revival is shaping up to be an interesting new addition to Derby’s growing calendar of independent music events.

And finally, a shoutout has to go to Fall Into Frame, who created the artwork for Reverb Revival. Festival posters can easily become a wall of band names and logos, but these look great and absolutely nail the murky, psychedelic aesthetic of the weekend. Good gig artwork deserves some appreciation, particularly when it makes you want to go to an event before you’ve even finished reading the line-up.

January is traditionally a fairly miserable time to be wandering around Derby, so spending a weekend hiding inside The Victoria Inn while 14 doom bands attempt to shake the building apart sounds like a pretty reasonable alternative.

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