Review Summary: Grizzly is the kind of lowest common denominator deathcore you probably expect.
Is there such a thing as intellectual deathcore? I think by the genre’s very description, intellectual deathcore albums are few and far between (I haven’t heard any of them, I’m just assuming they must exist). It seems no matter how great the musicians are, they still end up succumbing to momentum-killing breakdowns, extreme vocal acrobatics, monotonous chugs, and a wall of triggered percussion. Even the genre’s current mainstream darlings, Lorna Shore, can’t seem to get out of their own way long enough to write the kind of intelligent, emotive, extreme metal they clearly have the potential to create. It’s just the nature of deathcore and its most prominent influences, I guess. If that is the case, though, then Slaughter to Prevail has figured out how to get the most out of their genre while still appealing to a more mainstream audience.
Not to kick a dead horse, but if nothing else, Slaughter to Prevail is way less frustrating than Lorna Shore. At the very least, there’s never a point on
Grizzly where the band teases its listeners with something extraordinary only to crush it underneath an ill-advised breakdown or wall of triggered drums. That’s not to say there aren’t more breakdowns than you can count on this album, it’s just that the only momentum they’re interrupting is the rhythmic output of a band content with blending deathcore and
Iowa-era Slipknot. From the trashcan snare to the rhythmic vocal delivery to the way a lot of the riffs are crafted, it’s clear that Slipknot was a huge influence on Slaughter to Prevail’s musical progression. If you don’t hear “The Heretic Anthem” in the opening verse of “Lift That ***” then it’s possible you’re just not familiar with Slipknot. Earlier in the album, “Imdead” takes more than a passing page from Slipknot’s debut, complete with screechy samples, atonal guitar squeals, and even clean singing in the chorus that literally had me checking if Corey Taylor was a guest on the song.
Honestly, though, the Slipknot influence is fine. It helps to break up the chugs and breakdowns, and the rhythmic delivery of a lot of the vocals almost makes the songs catchy no matter how extreme they get. There’s more to
Grizzly than deathcore Slipknot, however. On tracks such as “Banditos” and “Babayka” (among others) there are subtle nods to the epic atmospherics of Lorna Shore. There’s also a surprising amount of actual melody and clean singing that ranges from a weird post punk style to a more standard metal delivery. Even more random is the weird musical tangents they inject into some of the songs. There’s the mariachi music that comes out of nowhere on “Bandito”, the strange spoken word part that runs barely under the surface during the last moments of “Russian Grizzly in America”, and the almost-rap interlude on “Imdead” just to highlight the first three songs.
Again, though, it should be stressed that
Grizzly shouldn’t be taken as anything more than mindless aimless fun and aggression. If the thought of a Babymetal collaboration where the girls do a majority of the harsh vocals, as well as singing the chorus and delivering weird high pitched verses makes you visibly upset, then this might not be for you. There is an obvious tongue-in-cheek element though the songs, and especially the lyrics, that makes this fun no matter how aggressive they get. If you can’t just chuckle and move on when Alex growls “Lift that ***, don’t be a ***ing pussy” in a thick Russian accent or “I’m ***ing full of hatred right now and you shut the *** up, and you go walk boy” then this won’t be for you. There are a ton of lines that come and go over the course of the album that are so random, and if you can’t just laugh at the randomness of it all while appreciating the heaviness, this won’t be for you. Did I mention there’s deathcore goth song that sounds like the cheesiest parts of Moonspell, because there is and it’s as cheesy as you’d expect it to be. Are they meaning for it to be taken seriously? I don’t know, but it really doesn’t feel like it.
Grizzly is the kind of lowest common denominator deathcore you might expect from an album with songs such as “Lift That ***”, but somehow it is also more than the sum of its obvious parts. On
Grizzly they have mixed the essential ingredients of modern deathcore – a slew of mid-tempo chugs, a multifaceted extreme vocal attack, relentless aggression, and a wall of percussion – with an obvious dose of
Iowa-era Slipknot, subtle nods to the epic atmospherics of Lorna Shore, and enough random influences to help keep the album from spiraling into monotony. Is it cheesy in its extremity? Absolutely. Are a lot of the lyrics inane in their meaning and delivery? Yes, again. Is
Grizzly just stupid standard fun done at an acceptable level? No doubt.
