Spite

Hailing from Southern California, the deathcore outfit Spite fuses death metal, metalcore, and neo-nu-metal into a devastating sound. Its founding members released the debut album Stay Sick in 2017 and followed that effort with Root of all Evil two years later. After inking a deal with Rise Records and experiencing several lineup shifts, the group resurfaced in 2022 with Dedication to Flesh.

Originally assembled in the Bay Area around vocalist Darius Tehrani, bassist Stephen Mallory, guitarist Alex Tehrani, and drummer Cody Fuentes, the band first put out the independent EP Misery and a self-titled full-length before signing with Stay Sick Recordings, the imprint run by Attila frontman Chris Fronzak. Its inaugural release for the label, Nothing Is Beautiful, surfaced in July 2017 and drew stylistic parallels to Thy Art Is Murder, Acacia Strain, and Suicide Silence. Spite further tested the limits of extreme music on the punishing Root of All Evil, issued in 2019.

After completing a circuit of summer and fall festivals, the group underwent roster adjustments that brought guitarist Lucas Garrigues into the fold while Ben Bamford replaced Mallory on bass and ex-Emmure drummer Josh "Baby J" Miller—also half of Darko alongside Tom Barber—took over for Fuentes. In November the band unveiled the video single "Made to Please," which was succeeded in January 2022 by "Caved In" and then "Hangman" the following June. Co-produced by Alex Tehrani and Matt Guglielmo, the twelve-track Dedication to Flesh arrived in August together with a single and video for the title song, ultimately peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.