Now four albums into their career, the UK metal machine known as Sylosis shows no signs of slowing down on their latest Nuclear Blast release Dormant Heart. Musically speaking, Sylosis really have worked hard to refine their blend of thrash, progressive metal, and groove laden tech-death, and they've served up twelve examples of aggression that is sure to please anyone who has followed them over the last 15 years.
Complex, bone crunching riffs & blazing solos abound on tunes like "Overthrown", Victims and Pawns", "Leech", and the manic title track, showing the mighty skills of both Josh Middleton & Alex Bailey. In fact, some of these riffs are so heavy and so groovy, it's completely impossible to ignore them for long, which is the first step in creating a solid heavy metal record. Now a few releases in with Middleton in the vocal slot, I'm still not 100% convinced he's the guy for the job. He delivers a wide assortment of screams, bellows, and growls here, but the problem is he sounds like every other metalcore singer out there, which really doesn't do the music justice. He'll occasionally drop in a melodic clean passage, but overall he just hasn't yet developed his own style or identity, which is a shame because I think Sylosis would be more of a lethal juggernaut with a strong lead vocalist. "Harm" is a perfect example of this, a sizzling thrash/death piece with some killer guitar work and manic rhythms, but the vocals are strictly run of the mill.
Once again, another very solid album from Sylosis. My reservations of the vocals aside, fans should get a lot of mileage out of this one.
See more about this release on our recent YouTube show!
Track Listing
1. Where the Wolves Come to Die
2. Victims and Pawns
3. Dormant Heart
4. To Build a Tomb
5. Overthrown
6. Leech
7. Servitude
8. Indoctrinated
9. Harm
10. Mercy
11. Callous Souls
12. Quiescent
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