Alex Mungal Evokes Fierce Imagery On Slaughter To Prevail Grizzly Winter Tour With CHAUVET Professional

PRAGUE -- Russian deathcore monsters (the term is most definitely a compliment!) Slaughter to Prevail earned universal praise from critics on their recent Grizzly Winter tour of the UK and EU. But the chart-topping band from Yekaterinburg was not the only one garnering accolades on the 18-city run, which concluded February 8 at Prague’s Forum Karlin. Music critics from Bristol to Berlin had nothing but good things to say about the Alex Mungal design that supported the red-hot band along the way.

“Slaughter To Prevail’s Grizzly Winter tour rolled into a sold-out O2 Academy Birmingham and delivered a show that was as visually imposing as it was sonically brutal,” wrote one reporter. “Lighting pulses violently with the music, strobes snapping across the room in blinding bursts that freeze moments of impact mid-collision,” added another.

Mungal and his team weren’t seeking praise on the tour, however, their goal was more direct: to create a design that translated the bone crunching power of the menacing, masked band’s in-your-face music with a matching level of ferocity.

“This show was built to emphasize the monstrosity that Slaughter to Prevail has already built with their individual members,” recalled Mungal. “There are some killer players with terrifying masks on stage. We wanted to bring the themes of their songs to life while keeping the emotions powerful and energetic.”

Scaling his show up or down, depending on the venue, Mungal and his crew were able to fit their show on every stage, creating a starkly intense look that drew fans into the music. ‘We scaled up and down over the course of the EU tour with varying sizes of venues, but for the most part the crew and I made this beast fit everywhere we went,” he said. “My crew’s support and flexibility made them the real heroes of the tour.”

Helping Mungal and his team accomplish this were 32 CHAUVET Professional Color STRIKE M fixtures supplied by Victory Event Stage & Tour. They positioned 12 of the Color STRIKE M units in the air and relied on them for top washes, snare bombs, and big hits at dramatic moments. The other 20 units were called upon to create layered uplighting throughout the graded depth, in addition to serving as cyc washes for some songs.

“We really leaned into uplighting on this one through a combination of top/key light and under riser lighting featuring the Color Strike M and batten fixtures,” said Mungal. “It was an additional challenge to simplify light sources for some of the trade-offs, but it also looked cool.”

The Color STRIKE M also helped Mungal unfold narratives for individual songs through the use of color changes. “Several of the songs follow Slavic folklore tales, so following themes and moods via color choices and source placement to make the “characters” pop was important,” he explained. “Songs like ‘Babayka’ tell of a creature that comes after children if they misbehave or don’t go to bed. This one, we used cold dark tones to bring this nightmarish feel to life.  Another song, ‘Baba Yaga,’ tells of the bogeyman, so a lot of the lighting choices throughout the show bring a horror combining effects and the band’s masks to elevate everything.”

Beyond light angles and colors, Mungal relied on atmospherics and distinctive inflatables to capture the essence of the music on stage. “We used both flames and fog throughout the show,” he said. “There is a certain percussiveness that comes with the impact of these moments. We had a couple of varying sizes of inflatables we’d use depending on space. In the end, everything was built out of the music.”

About CHAUVET Professional
CHAUVET Professional offers innovative professional lighting fixtures for the production and touring market as well as permanent installation in theaters, hospitality venues, cruise ships, clubs, television and architainment applications. For more information, please visit www.chauvetprofessional.com

Photo Credit: @Petrov.visuals and @moonvibes