“The biggest circle pit I have ever seen for an opening band”: watch British metallers Malevolence cause chaos at Trivium's Hammersmith show in London last night

(Image credit: @lvcifered (Instagram))

Last night, US heavy metal heroes Trivium played their first London show in almost five years, after being forced to push their originally planned winter 2021 UK tour all the way back to January 2023 due to the pandemic.

Headlining the Hammersmith Apollo, the Floridian metal mainstays played a career-spanning greatest hits set, including cuts from critically acclaimed 2020 and 2021 albums, What The Dead Men Say and In The Court Of The Dragon. While the night's headliners were on incredible form (as were main support, German extreme metallers Heaven Shall Burn), plenty of praise has also been directed at the show's openers, Sheffield metal crew Malevolence.

Today, UK metal social media has been awash with footage of the band's incendiary set, which featured what one Instagram user described as "The biggest circle pit I have ever seen for an opening band". See footage of Hammersmith being opened the fuck up via the social media videos below.

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malevolence 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/lV2a8Psub8January 12, 2023

This is fucking mental #malevolence pic.twitter.com/F1kuLdm5rKJanuary 15, 2023

Malevolence, who formed in 2010, have thus far released three studio albums: 2013 debut Reign Of Suffering, 2017 follow-up Self Supremacy and last year's explosive Malicious Intent. They also released a critically acclaimed EP, The Other Side, in 2020.

The five-piece will continue to support Trivium and Heaven Shall Burn alongside death metal veterans Obituary across a big run of European dates across the rest of January and February, finishing up in Frankfurt, Germany on February 20. Trivium, meanwhile, will return to Europe once again in the summer, hitting up Romania's Rockstadt Extreme Fest on August 6.

Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N' Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.