Grizzly
Artist: Slaughter to Prevail
Genre: Metal
Record Label: Sumerian Records
Release Date: 18 July 2025
Introducing one of the most anticipated album releases of 2025, Slaughter To Prevail’s third studio album “Grizzly” arrives Friday, 18 July, through Sumerian Records.
On the chance you’re not familiar with Slaughter To Prevail, they’re a Russian/British deathcore group, formed in 2014 by Alex Terrible (vocals) from Yekaterinburg, Russia and Jack Simmons (guitars) from England. The formation came about from an online meet via YouTube, and they now work out of Orlando, Florida. The band today is made up of: Alex Terrible (Vocals), Jack Simmons (Guitars), Dmitry Mamedov (Guitars), Mikhail Petrov (Bass) and Evgeny Novikov (Drums).
Grizzly
“Grizzly” is described as throwing the heavy music genre to new extremes and delivering unapologetically modern heavy metal, with Slaughter to Prevail aiming high to be one of the most talked-about bands of this moment, smashing expectations wide open. Regularly topping one million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, whilst hosting a record-breaking “wall of death” at last year’s HellFest Open Air festival, Slaughter to Prevail are well on their way to achieving these lofty ambitions. “Grizzly” comprises thirteen tracks, all bursting with an energy that ripples through the whole album!
The album opener is “Banditos”, which starts the listener’s journey with pure aggression and an instant hit of rage. Rough and raw vocals rip through this whole track – the rhythm steadily building until the percussion is machine gun-like, all brought together with sludgy bass sure to get the listener’s blood pumping. The breakdown of this track features a comical twist – a break from the heaviness for a Latino cameo with a short song about being violent banditos. The break is fleeting, and the heaviness soon resumes for this track to end on a real crescendo. For us, this track works perfectly as an album opener and is a highlight of the record.
Second up is “Russian Grizzly In America”; Terrible’s vocals come in early here before the instrumental work punches hard. The vocal work is everything to this track, with pig screams and plenty of bleugh’s throughout. The track is a real showcase of Terrible’s range, with the tortured screams resulting in something simultaneously emotional and haunting.
The third track is “I’m Dead”, which features vocals from Ronnie Radke of Falling in Reverse. We found this track to be an incredibly addictive one – it took four listen-throughs to get any words down for it, as each time we found ourselves getting lost in the music and head-bopping instead of typing. This song opens with a techno edge, which resurfaces throughout, and features catchy guitar work that keeps the energy high. Terrible’s vocal work is flawless, bringing in brutal roars, while Radke’s most notable contribution is an addictive chorus of “I’m dead, inside I’m dead”. We were very excited to see how Terrible and Radke could work alongside each other, and “I’m Dead” did not disappoint.
Fourth and sixth tracks, “Babayka” and “Koschei”,; are notable for featuring vocals in Russian as a showcase of Slaughter to Prevail’s eastern roots. “Babayka” is a spiritual piece, including hymn-like vocal work throughout, while “Koschei” blends Russian and English lyrics with the trademark fury seen throughout much of the rest of the album. Hardcore lyrics like “You can kill me, I don’t care, hell exists, see you there” really got our blood pumping.
Any song titled “Viking” is sure to conjure up a certain image in the mind, and that’s exactly what the fifth track on this album achieves. The crow’s caw, marching drum beats and war cries come together to tingle the nerves and make hairs stand on end. The opening of this track is not dissimilar to the magical and mystical work of Heilung, before breaking down into Slaughter to Prevail’s trademark thunder and violence. This track leaves the listener with a real sense of power – listen to it at the gym at your peril!
The seventh track, interestingly named “Song 3” features the near-unstoppable BabyMetal. We particularly enjoyed the stark contrasts between the screeching guitars, Terrible’s guttural vocals, and Nakamoto’s more delicate contributions. Any collaboration with BabyMetal is sure to produce something catchy and bouncy; Suzuka Nakamoto’s, Yui Mizuno’s and Moa Kikuchi’s unique performance style adds an interesting flash of variety to this album and there are nods to their signature sound throughout this track, with Japanese style guitar work and plenty of chanting in unison.
“Lift That Shit” and “Behelit” follow, with “Behelit” featuring a rather poetic-sounding, classically influenced instrumental before another energetic breakdown hits. The tenth track is “Rodina”, which is a somewhat beautiful Russian language track. Opening with an acoustic feel and featuring orchestral strings throughout, “Rodina” (meaning motherland in Russian) feels like a ballad in parts – imagine a deathcore “Wind of Change”. For the listener, there was a definite sense of nostalgia, which is not surprising considering the lengths Terrible has recently gone to distance himself from the actions of his motherland.
The eleventh track “Conflict” and the twelfth track “Kid of Darkness”, feel very natural alongside each other. “Kid of Darkness” is a particular pick from the album for us. We enjoyed the intricate string work in the song’s intro, which quickly made way for Slaughter to Prevail’s signature fury – looping high-pitched guitars are used throughout this track, giving a slightly industrial edge that resonates well.
Grizzly’s thirteenth and final track is “1984”, which begins with an immediate breakdown (and features several more throughout). “1984” is a punchy album closer – we particularly enjoyed the percussion work throughout, with the rhythm of the track seemingly constantly evolving. The closing seconds are simple plucked strings which, for us, just brought about a brief sense of nostalgia and brooding – a natural ending point perhaps.
With Grizzly, Slaughter to Prevail have come in with lofty ambitions to redefine the deathcore genre and take heavy music to new extremes. While this is an admirable goal, for us, the delivery does just fall slightly short of a complete rethink of what is an already incredibly divisive genre. There’s no getting around that deathcore as a whole is “love it or hate it” – there’s very little middle ground, and this entry from Slaughter to Prevail is, largely, no different. For deathcore fans, this is still a very solid record, with many tracks working within a tried and tested formula to deliver the punch, energy and fury that they have come to expect with a Slaughter to Prevail album.
We’ve enjoyed Grizzly – despite not being an entirely new proposition, there are hints here of an “olive branch” of sorts being extended to the metal community, whether that be through Terrible’s use of cleaner vocals in places (without sacrificing the guttural growls fans know and love) or through notable contributions from metal heavyweights Ronnie Radke and BabyMetal. There are also brief showcases on this album of successfully fusing deathcore with wider, more surprising genres – the spiritual chanting on “Babayka”, the folk/pagan influenced “Viking” and the ballad-like “Rodina” to name a few. While Grizzly might not be so much a revolution, there are certainly signs of evolution – whether this is enough to win over the wider metal community, or if this evolution needs to continue over another album or two, remains to be seen.