Slaughter To Prevail - The GRIZZLY WINTER Tour Comes to Birmingham

Recent years have seen Deathcore as a genre hit new heights, establishing itself as a mainstay of the modern metal scene; even so, this still feels like a real turning point as one of the hottest tickets right now, Slaughter To Prevail, takes to the road across Europe and the UK with some of the OGs of the scene in tow.

First up, and still going strong after 20 years of sludge, British outfit Annotations Of An Autopsy were the first out to entertain the Birmingham crowd. Sadly their set was extremely brief, at just four songs: "World of Sludge" (World of Sludge [EP], 2019), "Prosthetic Erection" (Before The Throne Of Infection, 2008), "Gore Gore Gadget" (Welcome to Sludge City [EP], 2007), and "Welcome To Sludge City"; but what we were treated to was a slam-tastic 15 minutes.

The performance is tight, the sound is thick, and the energy is high; we are off to a cracking start.

Cranking up the energy now, all the way from Riverside, California: Suicide Silence. The crowd were on side right from the start as Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody preceded the set, resulting in a full-blown sing-along from the almost-capacity Birmingham crowd.

As one of the OGs of the genre, Suicide Silence has a deep back catalogue from which to pull, and the set that they strung together tonight was crafted for maximum party atmosphere. "Unanswered" (The Cleansing, 2008) and "Wake Up" (No Time To Bleed, 2009) got the blood pumping before a dose of collective catharsis with 3000-plus middle fingers raised in the air screaming "Fuck Everything" (The Black Crown, 2012), with frontman Eddie Hermida acting as conductor to the audience.

By the time we get to "Love Me To Death" (Become The Hunter, 2020), the bass tones are downright filthy, so thick you could literally cut them with a knife; from our vantage point, you could feel it reverberating in your very soul. The center of the room is at full maelstrom levels, the crowd split in two, with Yoshi steadfast in the middle carving some shapes of his own. "Pull out your phones if you want to show your grandmother what the fuck is up." The 808's kick in for "Disengage" (No Time To Bleed, 2009).

"It was an honor to get the request to do this tour from one of the best deathcore bands out there... As one of the guys who started this genre, it's a fucking pleasure to see it grow and see people filling out a room like this."

A moment to pay tribute to those who are no longer with us, rest in peace Mitch Lucker, came in the form of "You Only Live Once" (The Black Crown, 2012), before the swift set came to a close with "No Pity For A Coward" (The Cleansing, 2008), arguably saving the best for last. The pit is wild; the crowd surfers take it up a notch, with Hermida reaching out to the barrier to dap up each and every one as they cascade over the top.

Joints were kept limber as the Village People's "YMCA" was thrown out through the venue's PA and met with the customary choreography. From one OG to the next, and we are onto the ever-enduring Dying Fetus. If we were in awe of the bass sound produced by Suicide Silence's Dan Kelly before, our minds were about to be well and truly blown by the tones produced by Sean Beasley; they were rich, they were menacing, and the whole performance was borderline hypnotic.

The night had been rapidly building in energy up until this point; the venue staff must have sensed this or had been prepared well in advance, as the ranks of security staff manning the barrier swelled. The crowd put them to the test with a near-constant stream of crowd surfers maneuvering their way to the front.

"In The Trenches" (Reign Supreme, 2012) got things off to an aggressive start, followed by "Unbridled Fury" (Make Them Beg For Death, 2023) and "Wrong One To Fuck With" (Wrong One To Fuck With, 2017). Already at a more than admirable level, the latest standalone single, "Into The Cesspool," sees the crowd lift the frenzy up yet another notch.

"Grotesque Impalement" (Grotesque Impalement [EP], 2000) was unfortunately cut short due to a medical emergency in the crowd (sadly this would turn into a bit of a theme for the remainder of the evening, but more on that to follow); but kudos to everyone involved, come the end of the show, everyone was safe and able to go home in one piece.

"Praise the Lord (Opium of the Masses)" (Destroy The Opposition, 2000) would close out the set; the crowd were understandably subdued at the start of the track, but by the end the Maryland-based three-piece had done their job as fever pitch was back in full effect....bring on the main event.

The stage, now transformed with a bastion of risers embraced and overlooked by an enormous red-eyed grizzly, began to fill with fog as a nod to this city's recently departed sons and progenitor of all things heavy music, Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark At The Moon," is pumped into the room.

One by one, decked out in the chrome variant of their signature masks the band emerged, before the Russian Grizzly himself, Alex The Terrible, launches us into the opening number "Bonebreaker" (Kostolom, 2019); adrenaline spiking, this is most definitely a Slaughter To Prevail show.

Already announced as the Saturday night headliner for this summer's Bloodstock festival, you can really see how much work the band has put into their production, setting the groundwork for what will be required on the Ronnie James Dio Stage come August 8th.

If Dying Fetus were witness to a steady stream of crowd surfers, the floodgates had well and truly opened for Slaughter To Prevail; a veritable torrent of them flowed from all corners of the crowd. Enormous props again have to be given to the shift put in by the venue's security down at the front.

Inevitably, based off the name of the tour, the set list was going to heavily favour the latest album, GRIZZLY (2025), with 9 of the 14 tracks on show tonight from that release. The first of these was "Banditos", followed by the recent single, "Russian Grizzly In America".

There are a sea of phones in the air as everybody awaits the now most Instagram-able part of the set, where the music cuts, Alex drops his mic and completely unplugged belts out some of the lyrics in "Viking" just before the breakdown collectively melts everybody's face off.

Frustratingly, the show ends up being a little bit stop-start at points, but this is most definitely a testament to both the ferocity of the band and the intensity of the Birmingham crowd. On three occasions, the show had to be hastily stopped, the floor lights turned on, and medical assistance provided to members of the audience. But huge props to both Alex and the venue staff for keeping everyone safe and getting those issues resolved swiftly; following each incident, and after Alex had urged everyone to look after each other, the band would restart the song so that no one would miss a moment of the set list.

"Imdead" led into "Babayka," but it was perhaps during "Bratva" when Alex let us all know why he has earned the moniker 'The Terrible.' Here his vocal performance is fierce, almost animalistic; not that he had been holding back before, but it felt like he let himself really be uncaged during this song. "Baba Yaga" and "Koschei" would follow.

Before the night came to a close, Alex commented on how wild it was that he was now able to tour with bands who he used to listen to in his room as a teenager and to take the opportunity to "spread a good message into the world....the world is a tough place; sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's really terrible; if you want to see change in the world, you have to look to first change yourself....I am a piece of shit, but I want to be a better person. I work on myself mentally, spiritually, and physically every day."

The back end of the set sees the last of the Grizzly tracks, "Conflict," "Kid Of Darkness," and "Behelit."

It's a final dip into Kostolom as "Demolisher" provided the encore and one last breakdown for the crowd to collectively lose their shit to.

We are super excited to see how Slaughter To Prevail could possibly up this level of production and how this show will translate to those big festival stages in the summer.

Slaughter To Prevail continues their "THE GRIZZLY WINTER TOUR," with both Dying Fetus and Suicide Silence along for the ride across mainland Europe through to the start of February.