Modern pop-infused metalcore is having its day. Bands in this genre are finding audiences from various subcultures and appealing to wider mainstream non-metal listeners as well. With bands like Falling in Reverse, Sleep Token, Architects, and Bring Me the Horizon continuing to bulldoze their way to the top of charts, they’re carving a path for many younger bands to bloom in this genre.

Michiganders, I Prevail, have been toiling away in the scene for over ten years. With their breakthrough success via their cover of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”, their original releases did quite well, too! I dabbled in some of their tracks off Trauma, and had a good enough time. Although with my tastes more directed at more extreme subgenres in the “core” scene, I Prevail quickly slipped away. When 2025’s Violent Nature came across my desk, I decided to give it the honest college try!

The record starts off with the heavy “Annihilate Me”, filled to the brim with all your modern metalcore/post-hardcore clichés. The simply named, yet crushingly heavy “God” infuses electronic and industrial metal elements, crafting quite the beater. Nothing we haven’t heard before several times, but headbang-inducing nonetheless.  Surprisingly, with a title like “Into Hell”, I did not expect a happy, upbeat intro and verse arrangements. Feeling baited, I wanted a darker, breakdown-laden beatdown, but got another pop-core track. Fortunately, “NWO” brings the heavy back, now slamming down on the pitch-shift pedal, channeling newer Architects.

A couple of songs into Violent Nature, it became evident that I Prevail is becoming a clone of Wage War, albeit a year or so behind the Floridians in their songwriting journey. The elements are the same, the arrangements are eerily similar, the tropes are all there. Many of us would fail an A-B test with Wage War and I Prevail tracks in a blind test.

Even more surprising, especially to this technical death metal/deathcore/extreme death metal fan, was that I found myself gravitating towards the poppier, ballad-y songs on Violent Nature more. While also generic, they harkened back to an earlier, happier time. “Crimson Clover” felt heartfelt, with catchy vocal melodies laid over clean guitars. Tracks like “Crimson Clover” and “Pray” are tracks you wouldn’t mind jamming in your car stereo with your non-metalhead partner, while “Rain” would get you bopping and belting its catchy chorus. I Prevail channel their inner NuMetal kids in “Stay Away”, with elements of Deftones creeping in, and the ramped-up industrial-electronica is the focus in “Synthetic Soul”. The clean pop-core chorus ties it all together. Thankfully, album closer and title-track, “Violent Nature”, a released single, DOES live up to its name, leaning more into their modern core with double bass, dotted note breakdowns, and more growls in one track than most of the record combined.

Following the departure of clean vocalist Brian Burkheiser, many ardent fans of I Prevail despaired about the future, as Burkheiser’s brand of clean vocals formed a cornerstone of the band’s sound. Fortunately, the vocal performance of guitarist Dylan Bowman and new bassist Jon Eberhard fills that void admirably. Main vocalist Eric Vanlerbergh has his moments on the heavier arrangements on the record, but he felt mostly underused.

Violent Nature is a solid addition to the I Prevail catalog, and many who enjoy the modern iteration of poppy metalcore with occasional moments of crushers will like this record. Unfortunately, much of the record blends in a sea of mediocre tropes, with a rare moment of songwriting ingenuity. The band feels like a lesser clone of Wage War and other bands that are closer to the spear tip of the genre’s experimentation. If this band wants to carve out its own legacy, it will have to be a lot sharper and enhance its own Violent Nature.