You can tell how much this was always supposed to be a big, significant album. It was recorded in the hallowed rooms of Studio 606 in California, using the same tech as albums instrumental to popular music itself, like Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Josh Wilbur produced, who not only has a Grammy but a veritable mountain of metal cred from his work with Lamb Of God, Trivium, Gojira and loads more. Speaking of which, there’s even a guest appearance from Randy Blythe himself for an extra sprig of star power.
All of that, yet for Malevolence, it’s essentially business as usual. They’ve never needed a massive leg up; the makings of metal titans have been there since the start, gradually revealing themselves over the years. These new, extra measures might help, but they’re by no means a necessity. And if you want something that works in Malevolence’s favour, it’s that. They’ve been doing the same thing now for handily over a decade with next to no fatigue, which should stand as testament for how great that baseline is. Where Only The Truth Is Spoken is their fourth full go at pushing it through, and it’s mindblowing how little of a hit has been taken, in any field.
You can factor out all of the snazzy newness completely and it wouldn’t change how good the Malevolence formula is. The central edicts laid out in a churning, battling blend of metal, sludge and hardcore just have that much weight. It’s worth hammering in how you won’t find much here that wasn’t present on previous Malevolence albums, and that’s firmly not an issue. From the very beginning with Blood To The Leech, it’s made evident—the barrage of riffs and grooves like falling rocks and a wildness in Alex Taylor’s snarls pitched somewhere between street-level and much further beneath the ground.
Perhaps you could look towards how Where Only The Truth Is Spoken leans a degree of two deeper into Malevolence’s hardcore roots. Not in a way that’s exceptionally different, as faster tempos shown off on So Help Me God and With Dirt In My Grave serve as the prime reps for teeth meeting concrete. It’s the smaller moments that make the different, though, and the individual bits of flavour added. The “One, two, three, four!” that launches out of Counterfeit is a prime punk callback, only heralding a classic thrash solo in true Malev form. Later, Demonstration Of Pain peppers in hollow, metallic drum thwacks among its flurry of sounds and directions that could feel overly piecemeal in the wrong hands which, clearly, are not these hands. It’s no wonder that it’s Blythe of anyone who guests on In Spite, known for his own longstanding kinship with punk and hardcore. He doesn’t offer anything that Taylor couldn’t handle himself, but the ‘real recognise real’ moment is nice nonetheless.
Granted, if you want Malevolence at their best, you wind down the pace and dial up the dirt to find them at their most uncompromisingly sludgy. Pound for pound, this has always been where they’ve shone most, and it’s no different on Where Only The Truth Is Spoken. It might be even better if the choruses of So Help Me God or Heavens Shake are anything to go by, spat out and left to power through the murk like you’d get from prime Down or Crowbar. Konan Hall is the MVP here—perhaps of the album in general—as a ‘clean’ vocalist insofar as there’s a bit more legibility there. In truth, his bellows sound more like they’ve been chiselled from stone with the imperfect splinters still left on, meaning that it’s heavy and brutish as anything (obviously), as well as totally all-consuming. It also helps on Salt The Wound, this album’s literal monster-ballad that’s always been an underrated strength in Malevolence’s arsenal since Turn To Stone in 2013. Vocally, its power reach their apex, as the excellent layering for the title drop is a subsequent dose of earth-scorching in case the dropped bombs elsewhere somehow didn’t finish the job.
And then, when you step back and realise that all of this is normal, par-for-the-course Malevolence…that’s a bit mad, isn’t it? It’s no wonder they’ve sought to align themselves with metal’s 2000s heyday, an era where a similar lauded consistency was enough to birth the genre’s current-day legends. If there were any justice, Malevolence would already be among them. They’ve dropped another terrific album, blessed with the magic touch that’s there by default. Argue that it might not last if you want, but that’s not an issue right now; empirically, Malevolence are still absolutely crushing it. And yes, for all the resources and highfalutin accolades that have been thrown into the pot, it does deserve to reach that ‘big, significant album’ status. For one of the UK’s best metal outfits currently working, it’s only right.
For fans of: Lamb Of God, Crowbar, Gojira
‘Where Only The Truth Is Spoken’ by Malevolence is released on 20th June on MLVLTD / Nuclear Blast Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
