Sylosis is a British Heavy Metal band formed in Reading, Berkshire. It was formed by guitarist Josh Middleton (currently also of Architects) in 2000. They went through many lineup changes with little success due to a lack of an underground metal scene, only doing a few gigs and releasing an EP. The band's big break came in 2007, where they were signed by Nuclear Blast. Their critically acclaimed debut album Conclusion of an Age was released a year later.
In 2010, their vocalist Jamie Graham parted with the band. Their sophomore album, Edge of the Earth featured Josh Middleton taking the helm as the band's lead vocalist along with guitar. Their third album Monolith was released a little over a year later in 2012. Longtime drummer Rob Callard departed in 2014 and was replaced by Ali Richardson (Bleed From Within). Dormant Heart, their first album with Ali on drums, was released in early 2015.
The band took a hiatus in the late 2010s, due to Josh Middleton joining Architects after the death of Tom Searle. Ali Richardson's other band Bleed From Within also reunited during this time.
Sylosis reunited in 2019 and released Cycle of Suffering in 2020. Long-time bassist Carl Parnell left the band just before the album's release, and was replaced by Conor Marshall. Sylosis also released an additional single, "Worship Decay", later in 2020.
Their musical style can be described as a combination of Thrash Metal, Melodic Death Metal, and Progressive Metal.
Band Members
Current:
- Josh Middleton - Vocals, Lead guitar
- Alex Bailey - Rhythm guitar
- Conor Marshall - Bass
- Ali Richardson - Drums
Former:
- Glen Chamberlain - Vocals
- Ben Hollyer - Vocals
- Jamie Graham - Vocals
- Richard Zananiri - Rhythm Guitar
- Gurneet Ahluwalia - Rhythm Guitar
- Jay Colios-Terry - Drums
- Chris Steele - Drums
- Rob Callard - Drums
- Carl Parnell - Bass
Studio Albums
- Conclusion of an Age (2008)
- Edge of the Earth (2011)
- Monolith (2012)
- Dormant Heart (2015)
- Cycle of Suffering (2020)
- A Sign of Things to Come (2023)
Sylosis provides examples of the following tropes:
- Cover Song: "Zero" by the Smashing Pumpkins. Apart from the vocals, it barely sounds any different to the original version and it works.
- Darker and Edgier: Dormant Heart. It sounds much darker and rawer than the albums the band's done before or since.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Conclusion of an Age. Jamie Graham's vocals are quite different to Josh Middleton's. This included the album featuring clean vocals, something which didn't re-appear in the band's sound until Dormant Heart years later.
- Epic Rocking: At least once every album since Edge of the Earth.
- "Apparitions" (7:15) and "From the Edge of the Earth" (7:37) from Edge of the Earth.
- "Out from Below" (6:58), "Paradox" (6:08) and "Enshrined" (19:16) from Monolith..
- "Quiscent" (9:02) from Dormant Heart.
- "Abandon" (6:06) from Cycle of Suffering.
- In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: The theme of Conclusion of an Age is the collapse of civilization and the Earth returning to its natural state.
- Genre Mashup: They have thrash-style playing, the aggression of death metal, the vocals of modern metalcore, and the melodies of melodic death metal. It's a pretty cool package.
- I Am the Band: Josh Middleton. He's the only original member left, and he writes all the music and lyrics for the band. He has also been the band's producer since Cycle of Suffering, and he even did the album's artwork.
- In a twist of Irony, there are entire songs that Architects have written since he joined that he barely contributed to or didn't contribute to at all.
- Lead Singer Plays Lead Guitar: After Jamie Graham left, lead guitarist Josh took the role of lead vocals.
- Longest Song Goes Last: "Enshrined" is the final track of Monolith and "Abandon" is the final track of Cycle of Suffering.
- Melodic Death Metal: One of the band's main influences.
- New Sound Album: This has happened a few times in the band's career.
- Edge of the Earth, as it was the first album to feature Josh on vocals.
- Dormant Heart was much rawer than the band's previous work, and focused more on atmosphere than technicality. It also had some clean vocals, something that hadn't been a feature of the band since Conclusion of an Age.
- Cycle of Suffering has much more polished production than Dormant Heart, with cleaner mixing and more layers of instrumentation. It also returned to the more technical style of Edge of the Earth and Monolith, while also introducing more progressive elements.
- Out-of-Genre Experience:
- The band's cover of "Zero", because they barely changed anything about the song.
- "Abandon" is a doomy Power Ballad with piano and synthesizer parts, acoustic guitars, no technical guitar playing and lots of clean vocals. It sounds more like something Josh's other band Architects would put out than a Sylosis track.
- Progressive Metal: They've always had elements of this, but they've got stronger since Cycle of Suffering.
- The Grim Reaper: A hooded figure, implied to be the Grim Reaper, appears throughout the music video for After Lifeless Years.
- Thrash Metal: One of the band's main influences, especially so on earlier albums.
- Revolving Door Band: Josh Middleton is the only original member left, and the band went through multiple line-up changes before even releasing their first album. Guitarist Alex Bailey and drummer Ali Richardson have remained consistent members since 2008 and 2014 respectively, though.
- Step Up to the Microphone: After Jamie Graham's departure, Josh decided to take on vocal duties himself despite never having been a vocalist previously. Not only has he been the band's vocalist ever since, but he's also taken on backing vocal duties in Architects since he joined.
- Vocal Evolution: Josh went from being a fairly limited vocalist on Edge of the Earth to being able to do multiple types of screams and clean vocals by the time he was recording Dormant Heart. "Abandon" from Cycle of Suffering really showcases how far he's come as a vocalist.
