Malevolence pick their top five metalcore riffs of all time
“We used to call it riff soup,” Malevolence guitarist Josh Baines says as he’s explaining how they wrote songs back in the day. They’d throw a riff out into the ether, then another, then another. They moved from A to B without giving anyone listening something to grab onto. Nowadays, wisened by countless live shows and their 10,000 hours of songwriting, their ideas boomerang back to them more. As they sat down to work on their new album, Where Only The Truth Is Spoken, they knew from the outset they wanted to develop a more chiseled, refined sound. “We focus a lot more on the structured elements, playing around with harmonies and layers and things like that, so when we play them live, it comes across well for the crowd,” he adds, dialing in from his bed near the end of a long, hot day.
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“It’s definitely more refined this time,” adds fellow guitarist Konan Hall, sitting in his car at the end of his drive. “We put a lot more emphasis on thinking about what parts go where and what benefits each other. Josh has had this huge bank of riffs forever and I’m going through these old songs, picking out bits and saying, ‘Can we combine these ideas?’ We wanted the riffs and vocal parts to complement each other, rather than on previous records where Josh brought this riff soup to the table and then me and Alex [Taylor, vocalist] would fill in the gaps. You end up covering a sick riff with vocals because otherwise it leaves an empty space in the song. This time, we really allowed them to shine. It allows you to have those huge riff moments which aren’t overpowered by vocals layered on top. You just got a lot of breathing space.”
They’re not just sharpening their blades on Where Only The Truth Is Spoken – they’re bolstering their own sense of ambition. It’s no wonder they sound in such confident spirits when they’ve edged to the front of the pack within British heavy music. Two years ago, they were opening for Trivium in the country’s biggest academy venues. Later this year, they’ll headline them. They sub-headlined Bloodstock last year, just beneath Architects. They played a rammed secret set on the Sunday afternoon at Download. They feel both like heroes and men of the people, their fearsome metal opening mosh pits but also minds, often touching upon subjects relating to toxic masculinity and mental health.
Few things say ‘we’re a big band now’ than getting to record in Dave Grohl’s famed Studio 606 in Los Angeles. “There’s a creative energy in that space,” adds Baines. “They have loads of the Foo Fighters’ gear, there’s amps in the back, the desk they’ve got is the one that Nevermind was recorded on. Josh Wilbery produced it and it was his idea to go there, because we needed a drum room, and he liked the sound of that one. Honestly, it was a good price! It’s in the middle of LA so it worked in our favour.”
Image: Eddy Maynard
“It was an absolutely legendary experience,” says Hall. “To go to such a legendary studio where they’ve got all the tapes of all the albums that you listened to as kids on the racks in the back room, like, it just makes you think, ‘Oh shit. We’re actually doing it.’”
Reaching the big leagues means moments like that have come thick and fast. “It just feels pretty normal to be fair now,” acknowledges Hall. “Every milestone in our career has been bucket list. My end goal is to headline Download. My dream once upon a time was to play Download. I could never afford it [as a punter] and the first time I ever went, we played it. We never thought we’d play a gig outside of [our hometown of] Sheffield.” That wide-eyed, down-to-earth amazement has never gone away, as Baines adds: “When we headlined Kentish Town Forum, I was looking around after we’ve played, thinking ‘Changeover’s now,’ because the band that everyone’s come to see are about to set up and play!”
Unquestionably, people gravitate to Malevolence because they’re real. The five-lads-from-Yorkshire mentality has never changed, no matter how many people have eyes on them. That applies just as much to their demeanours as it does their approach to music, especially when they’re playing live. “We always just talk about those legendary days of bands like Pantera and Lamb Of God, where they just have an amp and a guitar and what you hear is what you get,” remarks Hall.
“Everyone expects things to sound like it’s the CD, whereas, like, the beauty of it being live is that there’s different things going on, and it’s like slightly different and anything could go wrong, but it doesn’t matter in the moment,” adds Baines. “I think that’s lost in a lot of metal these days, because it’s so bang on time and uses loads of tracks, which is fine – we use a couple of little things just to back up the ballads and stuff. But I like to mess about with tempos and things like that and just make sure that all the guitar that’s coming out is us playing it.”
It comes as no surprise that Malevolence like their metalcore raw and rugged. Here are their top 5 metalcore riffs:
Dying Wish – Path To Your Grave
Hall: “They have my favourite metalcore riffs at the moment. I’ve got it on repeat on my phone, because it’s right hard. Their vocalist Em [Boster] has these sick melodies, but then it breaks into this really hard metal chorus. I’m really into that record [2023 album Symptoms Of Survival].”
Misery Signals – The Failsafe
Baines: “They were definitely one of my favourite metalcore bands back in the day. Hearing melodic chords being used in a heavy setting with odd time signatures was the thing that drew me into it when I was trying to learn more about how to develop my guitar playing in a metal style. It really stood out to me in a way that I just found interesting. I’ve not heard anything like it before.”
Architects – Follow The Water
Baines: “I remember playing that in music tech once for Charlie’s [Thorpe, drummer] music tech piece so I learned the whole song, and I was like, ‘There’s some mad stuff going on in this!’ because it was all dissonant and used not very standard scales. It’s really hard to play. It definitely expanded my knowledge of the guitar.”
Throwdown – Black Vatican
Hall: “The Throwdown album Deathless is unlike any of their other records, but that’s one of my favorite records of all time and my favourite track is Black Vatican. That record gave me a lot of inspiration on the new record, especially songs like Imperfect Picture, where you’ve got quite a simple chuggy riff, where one guitar cuts in and out, and there’s mad singing and clean, growly Southern vocals over it, and then it comes into, like, big screams and hard riffs and then other technical bits as well.”
Unearth – Sanctity Of Brothers
Baines: “It’s got some sick riffs. I remember trying to learn it and I was like, ‘How does he play this?’ There’s breakdowns in it as well and it’s got four big arpeggios at the end of it. I just thought, when I first heard it, ‘That is so sick.’ I’d never heard anything like it at the time. When I first listened to Unearth, I just thought it was really cool because they had the hardcore elements, which I like about metalcore, whereas these days, metalcore is not very hardcore, it doesn’t have much. It’s just more like pop metal. Metalcore to me is metal and hardcore. I really liked the technical side of Unearth, but they also had breakdowns and two steps, which were good for a live situation. It wasn’t just noodling all the way through. You could mosh to it as well and sing along and get involved with the crowd. But you could also stand and watch the guitarists and be like, ‘Yo, this is sick.’ That was kind of a big influence on the way that I try and write music as well, even today.”
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