Sylosis are what metal should be right now. Bringing the right influences in to where metal is right now. Their full length debut for Nuclear Blast, Conclusion Of An Age, is a dire and brutal prediction of our imminent extinction. Josh Middleton, their full throttle lead shredder, took the time to fill in the readers of Metal Exiles of why they are who they are and why you should own Conclusion Of An Age.
Metal Exiles interview with Josh Middleton.
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: What are the origins of Sylosis?
Josh Middleton: We formed as a bunch of 15 year old kids back in late 2000. We're from Reading which is about an hour away from London. It took us a while to get the right line up and we weren't too active in the first few years as we were young, couldn't drive and there was no real underground UK metal scene.
Metal Exiles: What does the name mean and how did you to naming the band that?
Josh: It's a dumb name. No-ones found out what it actually means though which is cool - we tend to keep it secret.
Metal Exiles: You have had a few EPs with Casting The Shadows and Supreme Oppressor, why a full length now?
Josh: The EP's were just used to create a buzz around the band but we've progressed a lot since we recorded them. They were originally both recorded as demos to send out to bigger labels but we felt it was a good idea to put them out on a small label. We felt it would be better to hold off doing our first proper album until we had reached a certain status and knowing it would be released on a worldwide label like Nuclear Blast.
Metal Exiles: What did those two EPs lend to this full length as far as development of the band?
Josh: We were still trying to find our sound on the EPs and the album is where it's more honed in and focused. For the album we tuned up to standard tuning which made a difference to the way our riffs sounded. We wanted a more tight, shredding old school sound for the album as we grew up listening to loads of old school thrash. We ditched some of the more European melodic death riffing as that got associated with metalcore which is something we wanted to stay away from. We've always loved huge epic melodic stuff but we started experimenting with doing that kind of thing in our own way.
Metal Exiles: What does the title mean (Conclusion Of An Age) and how does it tie into the album cover?
Josh: The title refers to the end of human existence. It's like nature reclaiming the earth and covering up all traces of human life and starting over. The album cover depicts a huge tree with its roots wrapped round a city, crushing buildings whilst the cities are flooded by the ocean.
Metal Exiles: This is not a concept album but it feels like one. Thoughts?
Josh: There are some running themes which we felt is a good way of making the album really feel solid but doing a full blown concept album was probably a bit too pretentious for us....at least for our first album. The lyrics are more observational as opposed to preaching about how fucked up the planet is etc and we're not environmentalists or anything. We felt it was a cool, powerful concept. We try to make our music really epic and grand so we needed the lyrics to reflect the feel of the music. We couldn't have lyrics about going out and getting wasted - which rules - it just wouldn't fit the vibe of the music.
Metal Exiles: What inspired your writing for Conclusion?
Josh: Musically just forgetting whatever is going on at the moment and thinking about all the classic metal albums we grew up listening to. Shit like Master Of Puppets, And Justice For All, Arise by Sepultura, Domination by Morbid Angel. Those albums that are just timeless, diverse and well rounded. The biggest band to influence us is probably Death, especially albums like Symbolic and Individual Thought Patterns. Combing heaviness, complexity and melody was what we wanted to go for. We have melodic parts because we want to, not to appeal to a certain audience which I think is apparent because we probably spend an equal time making the melodic parts as good as possible. We love bands like Opeth, Soilwork and Symphony X who have really epic melodies so that's what inspired that side of things. Other than that we just love brutal thrash and old school death metal. All that bay area shit like Forbidden and Heathen is so inspiring and despite there being a resurgence in the thrash genre now, not many bands seem to go for that kind of sound.
Metal Exiles: Where was Jamie’s head at when he wrote the lyrics and what did he draw on for the writing?
We all thinking about what the album cover should be like before we went into the studio as we love art and feel having a strong image was really important. Then the lyrics were kind of written after we had an idea for the cover which seems like a kind of weird way of doing things. As I mentioned before though, we wanted to make sure our lyrics fit the epicness of the album and obviously the artwork ties in and is just as important as the lyrics to us. Lyrically the album touches on subjects like the state of the planet (environmentally and socially), fighting wars for religion, the planet kind of healing itself by getting rid of humans etc.
Metal Exiles: Scott Atkins produced this disc. What did he bring to the table as far as ideas and the direction you should take?
Josh: Scott is awesome and I think we hope to record with him again. He is a total old school thrash head and was a teen when all those awesome thrash albums were coming out so his influence and advice was great. He knew what kind of album we wanted to make. We had the music all finished before we entered the studio but we left room for being creative and rewriting certain parts which was awesome. We'd get to a part in a song and say 'this riff could be so much better' and he'd be like 'yeah you need to do something completely different like this' and I'd sit there writing riffs in front of him until he went 'that’s killer!'.
Metal Exiles: What are you playing and why? Brands, guitars, strings etc..
Josh: We're currently endorsing ESP guitars and basses. We use the M-II models and I have a customized MW600. We're endorsing Peavey amps at the moment and really digging the JSX heads, they're really tight, clear and punchy. Our bassist is endorsing Aguilar amps and our drummer uses Mapex and Paiste.
Metal Exiles: It seems that you are bringing old school thrash back into the 2000’s but with a darker edge? Was that your aim?
Josh: Our aim was to just write the music we wanted to hear. I don't think having a darker edge was intended but that's awesome if that's how it comes across. I think for the second album we're definitely going to go for a heavier darker sound. Just as epic but more intense and slightly more technical/progressive.
Metal Exiles: What do you see in the near future for Sylosis?
Josh: More touring as that's the best way for building up the bands name. We're stoked to have just done a killer tour with The Black Dahlia Murder. We'll hopefully get state-side before the year is out as well as playing some summer festivals. We've got a show with Testament next month which is obviously a dream come true! We also hope to get a second album out as soon as the label lets us to build up the momentum as we've been writing a lot.
Sylosis are not just another band but a pure metal invention that will reinvent what we think metal should be in 2009.
www.myspace.com/sylosis
Buy CD HERE!!
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