Sheffield is a city built on heavy industry, industry with a long history of steel production, but a city built on musical heritage, from Arctic Monkeys to Pulp, Def Leppard to While She Sleeps, but there are new heavy metal heroes on the rise, they are Malevolence and they put the ‘M’ back in metal.
Meteoric rise since the return of live music in mid-2021 has seen them gain the attention of the music industry, a rise that continues to grow with a stop off at Bloodstock Open Air Festival for a headline slot on the Sophia stage. The hottest festival day in memory saw the five lads from Sheffield storm onto stage to a thirsty crowd of over 7000, kicking off proceedings with their seminal first song from the new album of the same name ‘Malicious Intent’, ensuring the crowd know exactly what is about to happen: loud riffs, thrashing drums, heavy vocals.
The Laney rigs are looking incredible, two full stack Ironheart rigs and two big Digbeth rigs either side of the drum riser on stage right and stage left consisting of:
All of them adorned with the incredible artwork from their new album ‘Malicious Intent’ and with the infamous glow of the Ironheart turned from blood red to ice cold blue, these rigs are really something very special.
As the set continues, it has a natural swathe which keeps the energy of the show up even with the tempo slowing down. Alex Taylor (vocals) has complete control over the crowd and as the intro for ‘The Other Side’ starts, he orders the crowd to hold a lighter or phone light in the air, and as the song continues the scene from the stage looks incredible:
The crowd were crazy, the most mosh pits I think I’ve ever seen at a gig, certainly the most crowd surfing we have ever seen, and the intensity didn’t slow or dissipate for any moment of their 75/80 minute set.
This was the longest set Malevolence have ever played, which gave the boys an opportunity to play some older songs of earlier albums that haven’t surfaced for many years including ‘Serpents Chokehold’ and ‘Condemned To Misery’, both of which the crowd took the energy up another level for, this included the biggest circle pit you can imagine, between 700 and 1000 people getting the pit going was an incredible thing to watch, but the place erupted when Will Ramos of Lorna Shore came out to guest vocal on ‘Karma’, but a special set needs more than just one special guest and in the encore Harry Rule from Blood Youth came to join forces on vocal duties with Alex for ‘Keep your Distance’, the crowd erupt, bringing to an end an incredible hour and a half set.
What has just been witnessed? Something that was very special, not a one-off, but a first. A first of many headline performances for Malevolence, the first performance to nearly ten thousand people, one thing that is absolutely not a ‘first’ is the complete nailing of a metal gig by one of if not the best metal band on the planet right now.
Here’s to the future, where history gets made and Malevolence make it.
