Conclusion of an Age

Thanks to the regular updates and newsletters that I get from Nuclear Blast Records, I was pretty click to catch onto hearing about Sylosis. This quintet from the UK was touted as "epic and progressive thrash metal", something that immediately caught my attention and made me think of bands like the 1980s tech power/thrash quintet Realm for some reason. Even though when I listened it wasn't anything like Realm or even that technical, hearing the title track off of this album before it came out made me really want to listen to the album. Skip ahead a bit of time, and I ended up coming across the album for the price of about five bucks in a used CD bargain bin at a local record store. I hadn't thought much about the band in the days before but I felt like buying it since it could give a "buy two get one free" deal at the store. So I picked it up, popped it in my car, and expected get blown away.

Rather then that, I didn't really get blown away. Admittedly, Sylosis's Conclusion of an Age is a real let down for the most part. Conclusion of an Age is not "epic and progressive thrash metal", it's really minorly progressive thrash core. That's right, this is thrash core, not thrash metal, not groove metal, and not melodic death metal at all. I don't know who came up with the idea that this band was melodic death metal. But getting back to the point, Conclusion of an Age simply shows another modern band at a bit of a more technical and progressive level then most of their peers and nothing new, epic, or that progressive for that matter.

First off, to start the problem I really have with this album is on a lot of the tracks I feel like I'm listening to two different songs combining then separating again and again. This is a feeling I get right from the beginning, probably the most so on the first real song of the album After Lifeless Years. You get that later on at various moments throughout the album and it really annoys me. I know Sylosis has a huge desire to keep things progressive and fresh sounding, but most of the time it sounds just unnecessary. If you want to play a clean song that's mostly melodic with epic emo crooning, do it. If you want to go balls out at full speed, just do it. Don't try and intersect the two lines randomly in odd zig zagging patterns that just annoy the living daylights out of me.

A lot of that also above problem is arguably helped along by vocalist Jamie Graham. Jamie sounds like pretty like much a lot of other modern metal vocalists, trying to do every possible vocal style at the same time and not able to really do one of them good very well. He switches between a very hoarse shouts that sound sort of like a deeper version of Phil Anselmo, rasping that one could potentially say is black metal-ish, death metal grunting, and clean vocals. Unfortunately the guy just cannot do any of them in a really amazing way. Admittedly he doesn't do any of them really terribly, he just cannot do all of them at once. Arguably he gives his best vocal performance when he does his shouting and the black metal vocals, but the clean vocals for the most part are just obnoxious. The songs where he leaves them out (such as Blackest Skyline, the title track, and Teras) are arguably where he gives his best performance, and he's at his catchiest. Many of his attempted hooks are just not as catchy because he switches between vocal styles too fast and poorly without a real need to do such. The only real songs where the clean vocals sound good are Transcendence and Swallow The World. The rest of the time though they are just unnecessary.

For such a "progressive" band, Sylosis also repeat themselves a hell of the lot of the time. A lot of the time the band uses a ton of the same chord shapes in the guitars. Guitarists Josh and Alex are often really playing the same riffs and rhythm patterns on guitar with just a different drum beat to make them sound a bit different. This annoys the living daylights out of me, because the band often to a lot of this really kind of slow paced, non staccato version of Master of Puppet's era Metallica style riffing that just really annoys the crap out of me after awhile. Every now and then they throw in a harmony or some trem picked part like the lead break in Blackest Skyline or the harmony in Transcendence helps to try and break up some of the monotony but then I realize that this is the way a million other bands really break up the same monotony as well. Some of the riffs even seemed to be ripped right from Metallica. Anyone who's listened to Teras, please tell me that the riff doesn't like that of the main riff in Battery? Swallow the World opens up on a note that sounds a lot like a Metallica ballad, sort of like a mix of Fade to Black and One. Please guys, we don't need another Metallica knock off here, we can find that somewhere (coughTriviumcough).

What I will give Sylosis is that these guys are tight and clearly know how to play better then some of their more well known contemporaries. The songwriting skills of Josh Middleton, while disconjointed and repetitive at times can at other times make a sound that is really heavy and absolutely pummeling. Nowhere is this more prevalent then on the title track, where I think that band arguably shines their brightest. Not only that, but Josh can actually shred and his solos have a much more old school vibe then many of his contemporaries. He's about on the skill level of Gary Holt if one were to put it into that kind of a perspective. His solos aren't very well phrased either, and his guitar tone often doesn't stand out enough to make you really say "damn this guy can play!" like some of the other guys who play music just like Sylosis does. Alex complements him with good rhythms and harmonization work that I think does just fine. Drummer Rob Callard is blazing fast with the double bass and makes a lot of good beats here and there, even though if it is a lot of stuff that I have heard before. He keeps the time well and does what every drummer should do at a good pace and keeps things heavy and fresh at times. Carl Parnell's bass is completely unnoticeable and almost impossible to hear, though you know it's there.

Production of the album is mostly that of the modern variety, guitars that really saturate the sound with their song and bass that is completely covered up by the guitars. The vocals are all neat and clean and the drums sound modern. There are clicky bass drums galore and plastic sounding everything else, and this gets to me quite a bit. I mean the band could not have gone out of their way to get a more old school mix like many of their "influences" claim to have gotten? It's not that hard to mix your album old school sounding these days guys, just find the person to do it or do it yourselves! Seriously this kind of album mixing is really getting annoying, and I want something a bit less clean and a bit more rough around the edges for a change for once.

All in all, Sylosis have good potential but a lot of work to do. This British thrashcore quintet need to work on making their progressions better or simply playing more straightfoward stuff, dropping all the different vocal styles and focusing in on one. However with the glimmers of hope in songs like Blackest Skyline, the title track, and Swallow the World, I think Sylosis can really show themselves to be more then just another modern metal band and can show that they really know how to play. Despite the title track, this album is not the Conclusion of an Age by any means at all.