Sylosis ‘The New Flesh’
You want riffs? Sylosis gives you riffs. you want heavy? Sylosis gives you heavy. You want blood pumping, fist punching, crowd chanting anthems? Sylosis delivers all and more on new album The New Flesh.
In a world that often tries to be cute with different styles or buries itself in sub genres trying to be more extreme than the other more extreme band, Sylosis leads Britain’s charge for crunching, no holds barred metal.
Last album A Sign Of Things To Come was a gargantuan beast of an album that stretched the band sonically into arena worthy anthem greatness. This was then matched by Bleed From Within’s Zenith as Britain’s finest jostled amongst themselves. So how does The New Flesh stack up?
Opener Beneath The Surface is a violent, jugular spurting blood, ferocious track. The grooves – oh those grooves – swing, the drums are muscular and the chorus is chest beating worthy. Man, we are in for a ride.
Erased has machine gun drum rhythms, the fuck you lyrics, and head banging riffs which slaughter your stereos speakers. Two songs in, my neck hurts and the imagination runs wild for what crowd will do to this.
All Glory, No Valour manically rips out, landing oh so briefly into a spitting chorus before Middleton rips a hole in the musical landscape with a searing solo.
Sylosis is a Middleton project, his vocals have gotten simultaneously cleaner yet dirtier as his range expands. His guitar work, always impeccable, has risen to levels unmatched currently in the scene. Just check out his work in the doomier Lacerations for further evidence.
Mirror Mirror is a foot stomping, roof shaking aggressive beast boasting ‘I don’t see a thing, I see a fucking snake’ as Middleton rages through riffs and then rips off the riff speed dial with the epic Spared From The Guillotine. The grooves will shatter glass.
Josh doesn’t just blast your face off with wall-to-wall riffs and switchblade sharp solos, there are slower moments. Adorn My Throne is mostly a slower groove while the ballad, yep ballad, Everywhere At Once – an ode to Middleton’s child – is beautiful and soft with a solo written by the angels themselves.
The last lap starts with a song whose music is so obscene it’s actually vicious in Circle Of Swords. The time changes from fast to slow, the grooves. It’s all dirty, filthy and x rated. Delicious.
Seeds In The River closes out the album in rapid rollercoaster fury. The New Flesh has been eleven songs that the word ‘epic’ is understatement. Eleven songs of brutal, balls to the wall, metal. Eleven songs of the heaviest and sickest riffs you’ve heard in years. Just when you thought Britain’s metal couldn’t get any better, Josh Middleton delivers a masterpiece for the ages.
Album Review By Iain McCallum
The New Flesh is out on Friday 20 February via Nuclear Blast
