***OBLIGATORY MENTION OF SYLOSIS BEING UNDERRATED IN BRITISH METAL GOES HERE***
That’s enough for that, right? No need to dwell when it’s Sylosis’ established Thing that follows them around wherever they go. Like Bleed From Within, they’re known for being loved but not exactly en masse, a tentpole of ‘proper’ metal waiting for its moment for truly blow. You might not even realise that this is Sylosis’ seventh album, such is their status as part of the furniture, regardless of how nice and plush said part might be.
Perhaps Sylosis are aware of that, if the potentially divisive shake-up of The New Flesh is anything to go by. You might see ‘nu-metal’ as a descriptor (albeit a tangential one) and start readying those fingers to type all manner of poorly thought-out vitriol and / or mockery. After all, this would’ve been the first album recorded since the end of Josh Middleton’s stint in latter-day Architects; concern of a clouded judgement is not without merit. Thankfully, The New Flesh is not a disaster. It’s not Sylosis conquering a bold, new frontier, either, but a baby step towards something more dynamic still isn’t impossible to discern.
At the same time, you do need to acknowledge that, for whatever The New Flesh is trying to achieve, something has been lost. The ‘modern metal’ style of this—pulling from thrash, groove-metal, metalcore and, yes, even nu-metal—leaves Sylosis hemmed in, try as they might to not be. It glares out the most on Spared From The Guillotine, whose weight and musculature of any given phrase are seemingly picked at random. Erased, too, sits in the court of Ire-era Parkway Drive, but not as attuned to its giga-metal sound and sunk by a particularly weak breakdown. And because this is a Sylosis album, the drums are pretty hit-or-miss in terms of how hard they’re allowed to go, no matter how much Ali Richardson chooses to throw into the title track or Circle Of Swords.
Suffice to say, the feel of The New Flesh is unusual in its inconsistency. There isn’t a lot that’s wholly thrash or classic metal in execution; it gets augmented a lot of the time for a bulky, low-hanging sort of heaviness. At the same time, the commitment to diversification within that is noble, and does lead to individual pieces connecting. It’s perhaps best achieved on Lacerations and how comfortable it feels with overlapping styles of metal. Later on, Adorn My Throne casts its net out further again, this time pulling in some black-metal as another inexplicably practical thread. By far the biggest outlier, however, is Everywhere At Once, the power-ballad destined to ignite the most rancor for how uncharacteristic of Sylosis it is, only to blow the doors down thanks to bone-deep melodic richness.
Decisions like that are what invalidate any already-cruelly uncharitable notions that The New Flesh is Sylosis joining alt-metal’s current cadre of mannequins. This is not the look of a band capitulating to mainstream values; it’s too imperfect and lumpen for that. No, clearly this is Sylosis flexing the agency that so many of those bands have failed to develop. And within that, Middleton is still a terrific, full-blooded screamer (especially when channelling greater desperation on Seeds In The River), and a clear kinship for the classics still persists on a song like All Glory, No Valour. By hook or by crook, Sylosis want to make it known that this 100% them.
It’s a noble goal. It’s also in desperate need of a tune-up, which will need to be addressed in the very near future, one would posit. The New Flesh is a bit of a mess, but there’s something really cool inside it that’s not too far from the surface, and getting it out might be the catalyst that Sylosis need. It’s the sort of thing that wants to be an all-purpose tribe-uniter within metal, a little something for everyone that still functions as a body of work unto itself. Give it another go or two, and they might just get there. Right now, the idea and gumption powering it are doing the bulk of the work.
For fans of: Gojira, Bleed From Within, Malevolence
‘The New Flesh’ by Sylosis is out now on Nuclear Blast Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
