They’ve broken crowdsurfing records – 901 in a single gig – but their music confronts deep, difficult subjects from mental health to toxic family members
M
alevolence insist they aren’t psychic. In late February 2020, days before Covid-19 lockdowns started being implemented around the world, the Yorkshire metalcore band released their breakthrough single, Keep Your Distance. It was a melee of growls and beatdowns that propelled them to new heights – in part thanks to a title that foresaw the next year of government messaging.
“It was completely by coincidence,” guitarist and vocalist Konan Hall tells me on a video call from his home in Sheffield. “But everyone started tagging us in signs saying ‘Keep your distance because of Covid’.” Lead singer Alex Taylor can’t help but laugh, joining the call from his place just up the road. “It was free marketing!”
The song amassed millions of streams by the time restrictions were lifted, and that momentum has only been built on in the years since, as the band toured with scene megastars such as Lamb of God and Trivium. Their impact on live crowds is now as famed as their high-octane music: footage of a venue-wide circle pit that they incited at the Hammersmith Apollo went viral in 2023, and last year they set a new record for crowd-surfers at Derbyshire’s Bloodstock festival, scoring 901. There was pandemonium when they played a secret set at Download festival last weekend: “Make these security guards fucking work!”, Taylor told the crowd. But their music isn’t just mindless mayhem, reflecting as it does on mental health struggles and online hatred.
