Slaughter to Prevail

• 1. Introduction

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  Slaughter to Prevail began not on a stage, but on a screen. Alex Terrible, whose real name is Aleksandr Shikolay, had built a cult following on YouTube by posting vocal covers. His growls were so impossibly deep that strangers across the internet sought them out without any album to buy or label to support him. That underground reputation would become the seed of one of Russia's most internationally visible heavy metal acts. Born in 2014 in Yekaterinburg, the band would eventually navigate visa crises, label disputes, a war, and a Swedish political investigation. How did a group of musicians from the Ural Mountains end up at the center of so many collisions between metal and geopolitics? And what does a song named after a Slavic witch have to do with any of it?

• 2. The Yekaterinburg Origins

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  Jack Simmons arrived in the founding lineup from Acrania, a deathcore act based in London. Alex Terrible had come from We Are Obscurity, a Russian deathcore band that dissolved after failing to secure a record deal. Two other former We Are Obscurity members, Maxim Zadorin on guitar and Anton Poddyachy on drums, followed Terrible into the new project. Slava Antonenko and Filipp Kucheryavyh rounded out the initial lineup. Zadorin's tenure was brief; his former We Are Obscurity bandmate Dmitry Mamedov replaced him shortly after.

  The band released their debut EP, Chapters of Misery, in 2015. Its underground success was swift enough that Sumerian Records signed them in 2016, and the label re-released the EP that same year with a new track called "As the Vultures Circle" added to the package. The signing represented a pivot from cult internet act to a band operating inside the formal structures of the metal industry. What that industry structure would eventually cost them is a story that took several more years to arrive.

• 3. Visa Walls and Lineup Flux

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  In May 2016, an announcement placed Slaughter to Prevail on the Summer Slaughter tour alongside Cannibal Corpse, a bill that signaled their rising profile in the American heavy music market. Around that same time, Dmitry Mamedov left the band before the Sumerian signing was completed, and Sam Baker, Simmons' former Acrania bandmate, stepped in on guitar. Baker stayed for roughly a year before departing. Original bassist Filipp Kucheryavyh also left around the same period, and Mikhail Petrov, formerly of My Autumn, took over bass duties.

  The band released their first full-length album, Misery Sermon, in 2017. According to the band, the record drew its inspiration from the hate and misery within themselves and around them. Two separate tour invitations arrived that same year: a return to Summer Slaughter alongside The Black Dahlia Murder and Dying Fetus, and an invitation to join Suicide Silence on the tenth anniversary tour of their album The Cleansing, covering the USA and Canada in November and December. The band could not fulfill either commitment. American visa restrictions tied to a freeze on Russian applicants blocked both tours. The gap between invitation and participation would become a recurring theme in the band's story.

  Jack Simmons stepped back from touring during the Misery Sermon cycle, shifting to a studio-only role. The Hopewell Furnace guitarist Jared Delgado filled his place on stage.

• 4. Bonebreaker and the Folklore Turn

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  Whitechapel brought Slaughter to Prevail into their Ten Years of Exile tour in 2018, alongside Chelsea Grin and Oceano. Jared Delgado departed during this stretch, and Robert Brown of So This Is Suffering took over live guitar duties. Anton Poddyachy, the original drummer who had been part of the project since its founding in 2014, also left that year. Evgeny Novikov, previously the drummer for Katalepsy, replaced him.

  Two singles released in 2019 and 2020, "Agony" and "Demolisher", reached an audience well beyond the band's existing fanbase. Metal Injection described "Demolisher" as "an event in the deathcore community", noting that reaction videos on YouTube multiplied rapidly in response to Terrible's vocal performance. Jack Simmons came out of his hiatus around this time and rejoined the band's public activities for the first time since 2017.

  "Baba Yaga", released in 2021 and named after a figure from Slavic folklore, was voted the third best metal song of 2021 by Loudwire. The second album, Kostolom, which translates into English as "Bonebreaker", came out on the 13th of August 2021, collecting "Baba Yaga" and three other singles. Reviewers noted the record shifted stylistically toward nu metal sounds, citing the influence of Slipknot's album Iowa. Terrible also expanded his vocal palette on Kostolom, folding pitched screams and occasional clean vocals into the gutturals he had always led with. Former guitarist Dmitry Mamedov returned to the band during this period. Later that year, in an interview on the 30th of November 2021, Terrible said the band had signed their Sumerian deal without legal advisors and felt they had been in a fool's paradise. He indicated the band might sue to end the contract and operate independently, but described the situation as pending. They ultimately remained with Sumerian Records.

• 5. War, Relocation, and Protest

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  On the 26th of February 2022, two days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, the band published a statement on Facebook condemning the invasion. Terrible followed with a second statement on the 1st of March via Instagram and YouTube, urging listeners not to hold the entire Russian population responsible for the actions of its government. The political stance was public and early.

  In May 2022, sanctions and a growing interest in the American metal scene prompted the band to temporarily relocate to Orlando, Florida. On the 9th of August that year, they released a song titled "1984", directly inspired by the George Orwell novel, framed as a protest against the war and against governmental control. The move to Florida and the Orwell-referencing single marked the clearest moment in which the band's art and their lived circumstances became inseparable.

  In January 2025, Terrible clarified that he had not permanently relocated to the United States. He described trying to visit Russia regularly and outlined plans for concerts both there and in the U.S. and Europe. By early 2026, politicians in Stockholm had opened a bipartisan investigation into the band on suspicion of spreading Russian propaganda. Opposition city councilor Christofer Fjellner publicly advised against allowing the band to perform in the Swedish capital.

• 6. Grizzly and the Road Ahead

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  On the 23rd of April 2025, the band released "Russian Grizzly in America" and confirmed the title and release date of their third studio album. On the 28th of May, they put out "Song 3" alongside a music video made in collaboration with Japanese band Babymetal, a pairing that extended the band's reach into a fanbase well outside the usual deathcore audience. Grizzly arrived on the 18th of July 2025, the third full-length record in a catalog that stretches back to Misery Sermon in 2017.

  The band is confirmed to appear at Welcome to Rockville in Daytona Beach, Florida in May 2026, a festival booking that keeps them anchored in the American live circuit even as Stockholm debates whether to host them at all.