“Suffocate on every single word you say.”
Sheffield’s very own Malevolence are hardly any strangers to taking the path of longevity to success. With guitarists Josh Baines and Konan Hall having been performatively active since the age of twelve years old, the South Yorkshire quintet’s artistic roots run as deep as any act within the alternative scene. Transitively, Malevolence’s approach to differential output in sound is likely a reflection of an undying hunger to continue pushing themselves creatively. Reign of Suffering, Self Supremacy, and Malicious Intent all had their derivative aspects, sonically speaking. While the first two records were more representative of late-blooming metalcore with some sprinkles of Pantera and Crowbar, respectively, Malicious Intent was a well-received pivot to beatdown hardcore. Understandably, there was an overwhelming amount of excitement in both the local and international communities regarding what direction Malevolence might go in next. On their latest iteration, Where Only The Truth Is Spoken, Malevolence take what could be their most surprising musical maneuver yet into the realms of borderline arena rock-inspired metalcore. Whether or not this next chapter of Malevolence’s extensive odyssey to stardom stands to be warmly embraced is as debatable as the majority of stylistic decisions made on Where Only The Truth Is Spoken.
If there is one long-standing affirmational constant to be found on a Malevolence record, it is a consistent barrage of meaty blast beats and chugs. This is a characteristic that has never wavered on any of their projects to date. For all the deprecating indignities present on Where Only The Truth Is Spoken, pure core instrumentation is as strong as it has ever been for the Sheffield outfit. Tracks such as opener “Blood To The Leech” and “Demonstration Of Pain” are highly indicative of this idiosyncrasy and are comparably mosh-inducing as any arrangement Malevolence has put together in previous outings. Alongside stringers Baines and Hall, bassist Wilkie Robinson and drummer Charlie Thorpe are equally deserving of praise in delivering punishing yet admittedly sparse moments of audible ferocity.
Pure core is a poignantly labeled partitional aspect in terms of what Where Only The Truth Is Spoken has to offer from an aural standpoint. While intermittent bursts of undeniably impressive musicianship are present, it nonetheless represents an anecdotal microcosm that’s bogged down by Malevolence’s apparent willingness to be complacent this time around. Less is more is a saying that gets thrown around a lot; its inverse is unfortunately what comprises the majority of Where Only The Truth Is Spoken. Many groups have scaled back over the course of their careers to a degree that has often resulted in more positive public sentiment. The trouble is, those who found success in doing so managed such a feat by either simmering down in a balanced manner or tipping the expressive scale in the other direction (see Bring Me the Horizon, etc.).
In the case of Malevolence, it could be argued that not fully submerging themselves in one genre or striking an influential equilibrium is among the more noticeable flaws of Where Only The Truth Is Spoken. There are several cases of momentum-killing deterrence where something truly engaging could have been heard otherwise. Whether it’s the stadium rock chant on “Counterfeit” that renders most of the track moot or “Salt The Wound” being unable to decide if it wants more inspiration from Bleed from Within or Five Finger Death Punch, there’s simply too much of a distorted mixed bag of external motivation. On Where Only The Truth Is Spoken, when it rains, it pours. Hopefully, listeners will soak in as much limited sunshine as they can.
Speaking of arena rock (or dad rock, supposedly), vocalist Alex Taylor has seemed to have resigned himself to bombastically pontificating his inner Ivan Moody in this instance. Taylor’s dirty vocals are as raw and seething as they have been all along. While this gives the nomadic pure core sections a layer of brutally crushing reinforcement, it’s quickly diminished once Where Only The Truth Is Spoken’s choruses kick in. “So Help Me God”, “Imperfect Picture”, or “Heavens Shake”: it doesn’t matter. They are just three of the eleven tracks that all exhibit this degradative quality. It becomes even more troublesome when Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe outshines Taylor on “In Spite” with a somewhat short feature. This, combined with Malevolence’s inability to ascertain just what kind of record they want Where Only The Truth Is Spoken to be, is perhaps most suitably akin to a valley of very high peaks that are sadly outnumbered to an egregious extent by deep troughs.
Make no mistake: Malevolence still hold a high degree of deserving esteem amongst the core scene. Their successive shifts on each album throughout their twelve-year run have, in some ways, made them the critical darlings of experimentation and nailing it every step of the way. But with the law of averages, we were bound to get a result that wouldn’t be up to comparative snuff, eventually. Where Only The Truth Is Spoken puts Malevolence in a rather unique position, given there’s no reason to think whatever follows will sound the same. Now, whether that’s for better or worse is anyone’s guess given how their latest trial ultimately fared. Nonetheless, there exists some semblance of what has made Malevolence as popular as they are today despite the shortcomings of Where Only The Truth Is Spoken. Should they return to that sound, the sky is once again the limit. But if Disturbed-laced dad rock is instead leaned into even more, Malevolence should at least make sure they have seated sections available at their live gigs from now on for the geezers that will be winded after a single breakdown.
5/10
Where Only The Truth Is Spoken releases Friday, June 20 via MLVLTD / Nuclear Blast Records and can be pre-ordered here.