I’m not the first person to identify Slayyyter’s 2026 music as a lightning rod. Her pop rock electro wakes up your ears on impact. “Crank” in particular uses a Baltimore club rhythm beneath her core thrashing genre fusion to exude smoke machine in the club controlled chaos. That song, co-produced by Wyatt Bernard and Austin Corona, is far from the first time the duo has either separately or together crafted such combustion. However, their four track sprawl on WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA does feel like a new peak.
The first track either of them are credited as producers on is with each other on “12345SEX” by UPSAHL in 2020. A lot of the raw salaciousness of Slayyyter is present in the themes of the record but the production is much more condensed in the alt pop lane. Bernard then split off for some stuff separate from Corona where he found some grimier tones first. From 2020 through the first half of 2022 he produced on 3 slicing electro pop records for Alice Longyou Gao and a duo of rage-adjacent rap records for Christian Blue and D’Mari Harris.
The duo connected more fervorously in October of 2022 for the first time with who would become the catalyst for their lasting thrash, Jean Dawson. The San Diego bred vocalist centers his sound in alt rock, but weaves in hip hop and alt pop elements always maintaining a stark edge to his sound. On Dawson’s first full length CHAOS NOW*, Bernard and Corona are credited on 8 tracks together while also being credited on one track each separately. While even more thunderous music would come from the trio later, one element that was solidified here that would be quite useful for Slayyyter later is angst. Each track feels like at least a bit of stank face energy weaved into it even when Dawson gets stripped back and introspective. You can feel each of them finding where they can truly shine on this album in real time.
For the next three years the duo would connect with Dawson for two more full projects and sets of one offs. They dove even further into the rock/punk sphere with him and even expanded to more spacial alternative sounds that blended with hip hop. Alt rock cadences also persisted in Bernard and Corona’s catalogs during this time for artists like Peter McPoland, spill tab, Isaac Dunbar, Alameda, and Liily. There would also be more edgy pop that blended with dance tones from G Lune, Harmony, from 2022 through 2024, which captured specific essences of the sharp saccharine that would be necessary to make Slayyyter’s music crystallize.
In October 2024 though, about a year before their solidifying most recent work with Dawson, a surefire build up to the eruptive Slayyyter sound would commence for Bernard and Corona. The most clear moment in listening to their shared catalog that made me think “this is where the Slayyyter sound started to really take shape” was on Halsey’s emphatic set of tracks on her album The Great Impersonator, specifically the lead single “Lonely Is The Muse.” The track essentially blends bubblegum pop vocals with thrashing rock music meant for a stadium audience to rage to. Even as jolting and shifting as Slayyyter’s music is, what makes it really sing is just how anthemic it feels. Halsey showed the guys that they could make something with this quality.
The rest of the build up included two projects by the pop rock crooner Ruby Doll, which took the stadium sound and made it sound more trapped in a smoke machine filled luxurious Miami nightclub, as well as trap rock exploding singles by the legendary rapper Rico Nasty. If you blend Dawson, Halsey, Doll, and Nasty you essentially get the actualized Slayyyter takeover.
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