Slaughter To Prevail: From Russia With Brutality
Considering the relatively short amount of time SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL have been in existence their rise has been nothing short of meteoric. They burst onto the scene with debut EP Chapters of Misery back in 2015 and since there has been no ceiling high enough to even dare to contain them.
Despite the majority of the band residing in Russia it was actually founded by former guitarist of UK deathcore outfit ACRANIA, Jack Simmons. Most will probably be familiar of frontman Alex Terrible from his incendiary covers of the likes of SLIPKNOT, SUICIDE SILENCE and INFANT ANNIHILATOR amongst many others that have amassed millions of views on YouTube but when Jack approached him to start a project it began a match forged in hell.
“Alex had a crazy following on social media. I saw his videos online as he was going viral and was really impressed by what he was doing so hit him up about working on something together. We started writing and here we are!”
Their debut full-length release Misery Sermon in 2017 continued their surging rise to prominence but the single releases of 2019’s Agony and last year’s Demolisher poured some serious fuel on the fire, catapulting them into the spotlight as everyone eagerly awaited the release of follow-up, Kostolom. “We just wanted to write music that we wanted to hear, as cliche as it sounds. We are very inspired by the late 90s, early 2000s where it was almost dangerous in a way, it was quite rough around the edges,” explains Jack.
“We’re in the digital age now and we were tired of seeing how everything else was going. We wanted to make a record that could sit amongst those bands we enjoy so much from that nu-metal kind of era and give it a more energetic spin on extreme metal. A lot of extreme metal bands these days fall into the trap of being overly technical whereas we just want to write something lively and a bit different. With Kostolom, me and Alex were very much on the same page and I feel like the ideas we both came up with complimented each other’s work. The difference between now and the release of Misery Sermon is like night and day. We had a bit of a smaller following of diehard fans. We didn’t have much backing from the industry or any other bands or people in metal for that matter, we were just very much by ourselves. I really feel like we’ve grown a lot since then and it’s very humbling to see our music reach so many ears.”
Kostolom blends the raw, unshackled aggression of SLIPKNOT‘s Iowa with the bludgeoning force of the extreme/deathcore palette to create neck snapping groove which are remarkably accessible for listeners who aren’t a fan of having their senses destroyed by some of the crazier offerings this side of the spectrum has to offer. It’s certainly proving to be a popular combination. “Whether you love it or hate it we just wanted some emotion to be driven out of you when you listen to us and it’s definitely done that,” admits Jack. “The response so far has been overwhelming. We’ve had a lot of comments from people saying they’ve found new deathcore bands and extreme metal bands after listening to us and that is something we really want to accomplish. We were intrigued to see what the reaction would be to the clean singing and other elements but it’s been incredibly well received.”
With full-scale touring still being a bit of a minefield for bands to navigate, SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL have been focusing on providing an abundance of content for the fans to digest in the form of music videos, playthroughs, and other such media. Something which Jack feels is an underutilised art, especially when there are so many opportunities with the technological advancements at our disposal for bands to take advantage of.
“I feel like with a lot of bands they release an album, they tour and that’s it, there’s not really much else to the cycle but for us, there are a lot of things we want to do visually and what we really want to push, like what we did with Agony, Demolisher and Baba Yaga. I feel that having a lot of space between the releases also allowed more time for people to ingest them. We will be heading out on the road in Russia later in the year but hopefully things will start to get back to normally soon. We’ve also spoken about me heading out there for the next release, maybe locking ourselves up in a cabin in Russia somewhere! We’re super comfortable with what we all want to achieve out of this now and it’ll be interesting to see the outcome in the future.”
Kostolom is out now via Sumerian Records.
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