Those new songs fit the size and ambition of Malevolence 2025 perfectly. Working with producer Josh Wilbur (Korn, Lamb Of God, Trivium), their trademark chonk and heft has been pumped up and toned into an even more efficient destroying machine, a natural fit for the sort of huge stages they’ve trod upon recently. The darker, slower-burning edge, meanwhile, has expanded, such as on Salt The Wound, a welcome reminder at just how good Malevolence are at writing actual songs, as well as rough-and-tumble breakdowns and shout-alongs.
“There seemed to be quite a lot of pressure to one-up what had happened on [2022’s] Malicious Intent, because it did the band a lot of good,” says Josh. “We played a lot of good festival slots, and the word spread quite quickly, and the band got a lot bigger. We asked ourselves, ‘What is it about that record that did really well? How can we set the foundation of the new one to be better and really push ourselves further?’”
“The biggest pressure is on ourselves,” says Alex. “I think we were always trying to one-up ourselves. The thing with Malevolence is, we’re not really trying to do it because we think these people want to hear this or this. We want it to be better than the last album, for our own sense of pride.”
The pair say the whole band got more involved than ever before in the writing of Where Only The Truth Is Spoken. Under the gaze of Josh Wilbur – “A mediator,” says Josh, “he stopped us just arguing about ideas” – every idea was picked over and stress-tested to make sure it all pulled its hefty weight. Josh reveals that some of the riffs are from years ago “in a random folder”, brought to life and pumped up to their full potential with the rest of the band when they were finally given a home. If they wanted to try something, Josh Wilbur could help quickly demo it to see if it worked, if it was up to scratch.
If the planning was precise and picked out, though, the actual performances are feral. Alex recalls Charlie nailing all his drum parts at 606 in under a week (“He was a machine – he smashed it”). When the riffs drop, it’s with a taut, violent energy, a highly-controlled chaos and the intended impact. As for Alex, even next to Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe, who turns up to lend his trademark ‘Wooooargh’ to In Spite (“I was so chuffed when we got that back and heard he’d done that,” beams the singer, “It sounds fucking great”), his bark has become even more direct.
For a man who admits that he “turns up and shouts” because “I didn’t have the fucking patience to learn guitar”, there’s also a surprising depth to what Alex says between mosh-calls. When it came to the album’s lyrics, he was particular about making sure they meant something.
“We don’t want to be singing about the stuff that we were singing about when we were 18, like demons and dragons,” he explains. “You’ve got the opportunity to speak about whatever you want, whatever you’re feeling strongly about in that particular moment in time. The fun part is making it all work with the music.”
So, the band would sit and listen to the demos, to properly engage with what they felt when they heard the riffs, and how it fit with the song’s theme.
“We’d literally put it on a whiteboard,” Alex says. “We’d write the theme up, and then everyone tucks themselves away, go on their phones a little bit, and we’d just brainstorm ideas.”