Casting Shadows

The first record I listened to by Sylosis was "Conclusion of an Age" and from then I was hooked to this band. It was only recently I had the chance to get hold of some of their earlier work at which to my surprise is in my opinion much more enjoyable than any of their other albums.

The opening song Dark Revelations is certainly the roughest and most savage track on the ep and is definitely the best track to open the ep with. The guitar throughout the song is excellent; the riffs are fast paced as good heavy metal riffs should be and the solo work included in the track has an excellent sound to it. The drumming goes well with the rest of the music and the vocals on this track are possibly some of the best metalcore vocals you will get.

Following this track is the title track (Casting Shadows), this track is a lot more catchy and makes use of some somewhat whiney clean vocals, this is something which I myself have a guilty pleasure of listening to but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. The guitar riffs are very memorable on this track and the solos are sweet sounding and high pitched. The drums also do an excellent job to keep the whole song together.

The Bereaved is possibly the softest and most metalcore sounding track on this disc. The song itself opens with some epic guitar riffs automatically telling you that something excellent is going to come up. The guitar riffs are then nicely paced and you can hear excellent consistent drumming. Amongst the track there are many sneaky guitar solos and mini solos, Josh Middleton and Gurneet are both very talented guitarists. As for the vocals the verses all contain screamed metalcore vocals whilst the chorus contains very whiney clean vocals. The chorus is what makes this track extremely memorable as well as accessible.

The fourth track is also available on their first album, but on the EP Gurneet is doing some of the guitaring so it sounds a lot more raw. The vocals on this track are extremely similar to Dark Revelations and in fact the track is very similar to Dark Revelations but so different at the same time. The only thing I didn't appreciate on this track is the choice of lyrics, the main chorus' lyrics are "But unlike the hand of midas, what you touch will turn to shit", the use of the word "shit" takes away the potentially epic atmosphere this song could have had. Its saving grace is the excellent guitarwork at the end.

Finally a short instrumental ends the EP. There is not a lot to say about this track other than it is soothing yet dark and ambiant it could have been an excellent starter track to their second ep but nonetheless is very enjoyable.

As a whole this EP has a much more metalcore sound in comparison to their later work. If you can find this EP it is a must buy.