They started out playing bars and clubs in their native Sheffield, occasionally travelling further afield to nearby towns such as Doncaster and Leeds. Malevolence spent most of their first decade grinding away on metal’s frontlines with some recognition but little reward. “I feel like we’ve been at the forefront of the ‘new new wave of British heavy metal’ and don’t necessarily get the props we deserve,” he says. Talk of the buzz currently surrounding British metal – from the success of relative veterans such as Bleed From Within to the excitement surrounding new bands like Loathe, Sleep Token and Conjurer – only aggravates his agitation. “We’ve been grinding for a long time and I feel like there’s an element of not getting that recognition.” “It’s a conversation we’ve had with people for six, seven years,” he says. As we talk about the band’s origins – they were formed by Wilkie and Charlie when the pair were just 11 – a hint of exasperation creeps into his voice. “We started playing bigger shows and by no means took any of it for granted.”Īs grateful as he claims to be, Alex admits that the decade between him joining Malevolence and their post-pandemic upswing was frustrating. “We went into the pandemic playing 500-capacity rooms, then all of a sudden were playing to 10,000 at the Download Pilot and going on an arena tour,” says Alex. A stint opening for Architects in arenas followed in early 2022. Once Covid restrictions were lifted in 2021, Malevolence made their mark on British metal’s big three festivals: the Download Pilot, Slam Dunk and Bloodstock. It dropped just weeks after the UK entered lockdown, a time when people needed cathartic music, and lead single Keep Your Distance subsequently soared its way to millions of Spotify streams. Although Malevolence had released two albums before then, 2013’s Reign Of Suffering and 2017’s Self Supremacy, it was April 2020’s The Other Side EP that reached the furthest. Progress towards that lofty goal truly started as the pandemic hit hard. We want to be up there with your Lamb Of Gods and Hatebreeds.” “When you think of metal, you think of Malevolence. “I think we deserve to be one of those bands that is a household metal name,” he says with casual confidence. The Trivium frontman isn’t the only one who knows how good this band really are. It’s a fusion that doesn’t come out as ‘metalcore’ as we know it.” Josh has told me, ‘We’re a metal band,’ but Alex and his style and sound bring in hardcore. They’re an amazing fusion of crossover hardcore and metal. “No one is doing what Malevolence are doing right now. “As soon as I heard Keep Your Distance, I was like, ‘This is fucking insane!,’” says Trivium’s Matt Heafy. Their music demands participation, from moshing to headbanging to the kind of epic pits that end up going viral. They’ve perfected their mix of distorted groove metal, relentless metalcore and vein-bulging hardcore across three albums, the most recent being 2022’s stellar Malicious Intent. They have been blasting out brutal, barrel-chested noise since their original incarnation formed in 2006 (they ‘officially’ became the Malevolence we know today when Alex joined in 2010). Malevolence are a 17-year overnight sensation. If that’s the case, it’s been a long time coming. It all screams ‘band on a serious career upswing.’ Alex’s PS4 is plugged into a wall-mounted TV. The communal space on their tourbus has leather seats and mahogany furnishings. Luckily, they’re travelling in something approaching comfort. When Hammer meets Malevolence in Prague, they have been on the road with Trivium for nearly two weeks, and they’ve got another month to go (Obituary and Heaven Shall Burn are also on this four-band bill).
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