British metalcore heavyweights Malevolence hit the north with their friends and family at their biggest headline show to date.
“Yorkshire! Yorkshire!” The chant rises from the mass of 3,500 people squashed into O2 Victoria Warehouse as the final ghostly notes of Salt The Wound fade, hailing the Sheffield band onstage. Malevolence vocalist Alex Taylor soaks it all up, a mile-wide grin spreading across his face. As well he might, Malevolence have earned this. More than a decade of hard graft and even harder riffs have taken them from their bedrooms to their biggest headline show to date. Never mind that Manchester lies within Yorkshire’s historic rival, Lancashire. Tonight, the headliners and their mates from around the world have turned up to take the lot.
Each band this dream line-up – handpicked by Malevolence themselves – brings something unique to this evening of heaviness, like a Frankenstein's monster of brutality. Newcomers PSYCHO-FRAME bring violence to the pit early on. The deathcore mob drop sickening beatdown after beatdown, from the moment Leo McClain’s gravitational blastbeats launch Blueprints For Idol Genocide. Dual vocalists Mike Sugars and Hunter Young trade barbarous roars and disgusting farmyard bellows, before one crowdsurfer grabs the mic to lend their own impressive pig squeal to Raining Glass.
Dying Wish up the ante with melodic moments peppering their otherwise uncompromising set of twisted, ingenious metalcore. “Manchester, I’m feeling supersonic,” Emma Boster teases the crowd as A Curse Upon Iron achieves lift-off, followed by countless bodies over the barrier. Bassist Jon Mackey thrashes like an absolute maniac through Symptoms Of Survival’s rancorous groove, while Emma’s hair-raising screams and high kicks in cowboy boots puts some yee-hardcore into Lost In The Fall’s mosh madness.
As for Speed? Sydney’s hardcore contingent bring a band of brothers mentality and a truckload of positive energy as REAL LIFE LOVE sparks fresh movement in the pit. It’s a mindset they share with the headliners, having shared a stage with Malevolence at their second-ever show in 2019. And it's fair to say both bands have come a long way since then. With slamming new tunes like PEACE and volatile frontman Jem Siow’s demands that “hardcore is a participatory sport,” Speed ensure that Manny is a non-stop blur of swinging limbs and bouncing bodies. It’s a passionate, energetic display that few bands could follow.
Malevolence are categorically one of those bands. From the shock-and-awe barrage of lights and heavy riffing firepower that opens Blood To The Leech, to the big time multi-level platforms that the band stomp around all evening, it’s abundantly clear that the Sheffield juggernauts are stepping up. It’s also clear that Alex Taylor expects the crowd to do the same, cutting Trenches short after two lines. “That’s simply not good enough, Manchester,” he goads, “Play it back, let’s go!” Gauntlet thrown down, the song’s resounding challenge, 'Who the fuck are you? Never fucking heard of you!’ coming back 10 times as hard.
With a lean and mean set honed over years of touring, Malevolence have full command over this monstrous crowd, showing what they can do with a stage big enough to match their ambitions. Charlie Thorpe’s savage beats practically bulldoze through the crowd during Karma, while Josh Baines’ ecstatic guitar solo during So Help Me God summons Kirk Hammett via South Yorkshire – an emotional highpoint before the hammer comes down again. Meanwhile, Dying Wish’s Emma Boster jumping on Keep Your Distance is an insane tag-team.
No matter how big the stage gets, Malevolence haven’t forgotten where they come from, though. “I think that’s my mum up there in the balcony,” grins Alex, raising a cheer from the crowd as she waves back eagerly. Higher Place then fills O2 Victoria Warehouse with phone lights and voices alongside those of co-vocalist Konan Hall, and the sound of that epic chorus echoed back by 3,500 souls – Alex’s mum included – is just one powerful sign of Malevolence's future.
“We will remember this show for the rest of our lives,” Alex enthuses to the crowd, as the band pause to take pictures onstage. And you can tell they mean it. This near-hometown show on northern soil surrounded by family and allies old and new has firmly staked Malevolence’s claim to a seat at British metal’s top table. Watch the throne.
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