- Country: United Kingdom
- Style: Thrash metal / Progressive metal
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Release date: 12 January 2015
Josh Middleton called Dormant Heart the most pissed-off record Sylosis had made, and he wasn’t exaggerating. It’s their angriest album, and also their bleakest.
“Where the Wolves Come to Die” is a short lead-in, and then “Victims and Pawns” goes straight for the throat with the clean, palm-muted thrash picking that has always been Middleton’s strength. The heaviness comes from riffs and speed rather than low end. The title track and “Leech” are the most direct songs here. “Mercy” is the surprise: melodic, dark, ending in a long, doomy crawl. And “Quiescent” closes the album with a slow-building epic that could easily have been the last word on the record.
Middleton produced it himself with Scott Atkins engineering, and it sounds deliberately organic – the drums, recorded by Rob Callard before he left, have real room in them. At twelve tracks it is a little long, and a couple of songs in the back half run together. But the playing is fierce, and the anger is real. A strong, underrated record.
Best tracks:
Victims and Pawns
Dormant Heart
Leech
Mercy
Quiescent
Author’s rating: 8.1/10
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