But four years on, normal service is due to resume, as he relaunches his band with stunning new album Cycle Of Suffering. After spending his time off exploring new creative avenues and contemplating his own artistic desires, Middleton returns to Sylosis with a rejuvenated spirit.

As ever, Josh is being needlessly modest. Cycle Of Suffering is immediately recognisable as the most vital and explosive record yet to be released under the Sylosis name. While still bearing many of the band’s expected sonic hallmarks, the likes of I Sever and Shield take a subtly ingenious approach to state-of-theart thrash metal, infusing everything with a sense of perpetual invention and untrammelled intensity. There are huge melodies and gleaming hooks erupting throughout this sustained, 50-minute burst of cutting-edge brutality, but Cycle Of Suffering is bold and exploratory too: everything from slow-burning cautionary tale Calcified to the acoustic-led but venomous Arms Like A Noose indicates that Sylosis has evolved as a band, while its leader’s song writing blade has never been sharper. Cycle Of Suffering simply the best thing that Sylosis has ever produced.

CD:

01. Empty Prophets
02. I Sever
03. Cycle Of Suffering
04. Shield
05. Calcified
06. Invidia
07. Idle Hands
08. Apex Of Disdain
09. Arms Like A Noose
10. Devils In Their Eyes
11. Disintegrate
12. Abandon

LINE-UP:

JOSH MIDDLETON| vocals, guitars
ALEX BAILEY | guitars
CARL PARNELL | bass
ALI RICHARDSON| drums