Sylosis – Monolith

Sylosis is a British metal band from Reading, Berkshire and they return a year after their last work ‘Edge Of The Earth’ with their third record called ‘Monolith’. The new album was recorded in Wales at Monnow Valley Studios, the same place where world famous acts such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Rush has previously recorded, and sounds freaking awesome due to the fantastic job producer Romesh Dodangoda did.

After the release of the new album, Sylosis were supposed to go on tour with Devin Townsend and Fear Factory on the ‘Epic Industrialist’ tour but they announced that due to their own touring commitments that they had to cancel their appearance on that tour. A few days later it was announced that they had been asked by Lamb of God to go on their US tour.

You could describe the sound of the new album as progressive thrash metal with a few atmospheric elements. Josh Middleton, who is the main songwriter, lead guitarist and singer of the band, has made an excellent work through the album playing some technical riffs and fantastic leads while singing some astonishing vocals. As he has stated before “The foundation of our sound is old school Bay Area thrash” and you can immediately notice it as the album starts with ‘Out From Below’ where you can hear some excellent riffs that reminded me of early Metallica.

‘Monolith’ is a concept album lyric wise. The band has stated that the album is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus who tries to get his wife Eurydice back from Hades, with his mesmerizing musical skills. The concept focuses on the negative side of a person’s personality in terms of being selfish, manipulative or dishonest and that you might not be as nice a person as you once thought as they mentioned.

The album is full of thrashy songs with fast drumming, fantastic riffs and leads and aggressive vocals. Such songs that combine all the elements that i mentioned before are ‘The River’ or ‘A Dying Vine’. And of course you can hear some heavier stuff in songs like ‘All Is Not Well’ or the title track ‘Monolith’.

I really liked the way Sylosis alternate from atmospheric to heavier parts in songs like ‘What Dwells Within’ and ‘Fear The World’ showing how great musicians they are. Rob Callard played some fantastic drums parts with killer sound. Carl Parnell is responsible for the bass parts while Alex Bailey played the rhythm guitars combining with Josh Middleton’s leads, creating a mix that sounds like a well-tuned machine. ‘Paradox’ has some really great riffs and melodies and one of my favourite guitar solos of the album. Other remarkable songs which are my favourites too are ‘Behind The Sun’ and ‘Born Anew’. The last track ‘Enshrined’ contains a hidden track 10 minutes after the end of the song at 04:59.

Sylosis manage to sound unique in a genre with hundreds of emerging bands. They have found the golden section in the writing process, balancing between the heavy thrash metal and progressive and atmospheric sound perfectly and probably released their best and most complete album so far.