SYLOSIS: “A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME”

(In September Nuclear Blast released a new album by the UK’s Sylosis. Our writer DGR, who never rushes into anything, finally got around to setting down thoughts about it, which is what you’ll find below.)

If you’ll forgive the slightly more personal approach to this one, Sylosis are a band that I’ve followed for a long time now, spanning almost a decade plus of their career – starting when they first signed with Roadrunner (they popped up on their news page and believe it or not, it was one of the ways I would find bands) and then across multiple record labels, lineup changes, and even a hiatus while its members spread out to other projects.

I’ve espoused the theory before on this site but I’ve always felt that Sylosis are one of those groups that are a fantastic gateway band, mostly credited to their three-part combination of thrash, metalcore, and melodeath that has them resting somewhere in the center. It’s the VIT, INT, DEX triangle that you’ll see in some roleplaying games of their musical career. They may never fully dive into the full depths of being one particular type, but their combination of them has held enough power to draw people in from multiple directions, and just as possibly, to send people off into exploring other parts of the metal world once they make the same connection of what Sylosis are constructed out of.

The group’s discography is a testament to that blueprint. A large part of any disc’s particular appeal would come down to what part of their genre-triangle is emphasized more during that release. Their comeback album Cycle Of Suffering leaned hard on the thrashier and melodeath side of things, and while yes, a lot of those songs followed a similar format, it had a sort of clawing-their-way-back punchiness that meant it came across far meaner than you might expect – save for the slower song at the end.

A Sign Of Things To Come is interesting in that regard, given that the three singles that came out before it were all much ‘stompier’ and straightforward, the metalcore side of things getting more emphasis, and less circle-pit-riff driven. They were slowed down and more percussive than the band have been in some time, and it probably won’t shock to hear that it turns out those singles may have been something of a ‘test drive’ for what would follow in full album form; A Sign Of Things To Come is a lot of that particular sound expanded.

A Sign Of Things To Come is also an album that puts in a lot of work to sound very different from its immediate predecessor. There’s a lot of ideas in play here and many different approaches to the Sylosis ‘style’. As a result, the throughline isn’t as neat and calls to mind a previous Sylosis album with a similar tact, 2015’s Dormant Heart.

Compared to its older sibling, A Sign Of Things To Come is slower, and like mentioned before, also a lot more varied. It’s probably the most varied in terms of vocal performance from frontman Josh Middleton, requiring him to break out from his usual mid-range yell into more singing, higher screaming, and often a combination of the two.

This seems to have been the focus of A Sign Of Things To Come this time around, as often it feels like the album is building to another big chorus or moment wherein he’s required to step into the spotlight in an area that isn’t comfortably under a hoodie and wielding a guitar. It’s partially why the album reminds so much of Dormant Heart, since that album had a very similar flow, an equally similar spread of songs, and was the first time in a long while that Sylosis had really leaned hard on the -core aspect of their sound. You could treat A Sign Of Things To Come as a refinement of that album in a lot of ways, which means that it also carries a lot of the similar marks that worked against it.

Sylosis are at their best when they’re at their fastest. It’s also probably the mode they may be the most tired of being in, given how ‘fast’ for the band usually involves being incredibly intense as well. Albums like Cycle Of Suffering, Monolith, and Edge Of The Earth are built out of the band pushing the thrash and melodeath buttons on their musical ship’s control panel and holding them down hard.

In fact, the strongest moments of Dormant Heart and A Sign Of Things To Come are still those where Sylosis are intent on whipping up another dust cloud of a circle pit and hammering their way through the center of the stage. Those moments are more spread out in the overall tracklisting this time – and even within songs themselves instead of being purpose built for one motivation at the start – so that A Sign Of Things To Come has peaks and valleys. Songs like “Deadwood” – which, given that it’s the opening standard bearer, kind of has to be “the fast one” – “Pariahs”, “Poison For The Lost”, and “Eye For An Eye” carry that torch this time, but five songs does not a good circle-pit ass-kicking make.

How long A Sign Of Things To Come sticks with you will likely come down to how you felt about the three singles that came out before this album. If you thought the mid-tempo stompings that comprised the chorus of “Worship Decay”, or the strained clean singing of “Heavy Is The Crown”, or the complete pylon-driving rhythm of “Immovable Stone” – which in itself, alongside said ‘crown’ both get lyrical references across A Sign Of Things To Come – were your speed, then you’ll be plenty comfy with A Sign Of Things To Come as a whole. There’s even more balladry and moments where Sylosis grind to a halt entirely on the album, so that the whole release isn’t constantly in unhinged ferocity mode.

The problem there is that Sylosis are really, really, really good in unhinged ferocity mode, so each time that A Sign Of Things To Come decides to sit in a corner, be moody, and let ambient light be the only light in the room, it just slows the whole pacing of events down so that the sort of cheap adrenaline high you get from the band tearing through the hardcore-punk, metalcore riffs, and thrashier staples wears down. It probably won’t surprise, given how the spectre of Dormant Heart seems to hover over A Sign Of Things To Come, that Dormant Heart did something similar, though eight years later Sylosis seem more confident in letting those songs stand on their own instead of brad-nailing a quick guitar part onto the end of it.

As much as Sylosis are experimenting with different approaches across A Sign Of Things To Come, much of the music is still firmly within their wheelhouse, which means for the most part it is still pretty enjoyable. Honestly, where you fall on A Sign Of Things To Come will come down to which part of their tripartate formula you prefer. If you like the more percussive, song-song-ey side of metalcore, then a lot of the album will be appealing. If you’re a hobbyist nerd for the faster stuff – like yours truly – then the enjoyment is a little more even-keeled.

There’s about an EP’s worth of solid ‘run in circles, you moron!’ songwriting here that is fantastic. The rest is a solid split; the rhythmic punch and clean-sung songs are pretty good but given how A Sign Of Things To Come as a whole just seems to be slower means it doesn’t quite hit with the same overwhelming aggression that is often people’s first exposure to the band. A Sign Of Things To Come may not be the big ‘sign’ of where Sylosis are headed in the future but instead feels like them planting many different seeds to branch out. They have the confident core of their sound they can rely on but where they decide to travel in the future, given the slowed-down and punchier material here, and whether or not they refine on that, will be interesting to watch.

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