Flesh is the brand new EP from Heylel, following on from last year’s debut album Nebulae.
At barely a year passing between this release and their last, it does unfortunately feel a little incomplete and somewhat rushed. It almost feels thrown together at times, with no real direction and clarity, and it’s a shame because their debut album had a lot more drive to it. Opener Saints is a wishy-washy affair with no real hooks or moments to pique your interest and fourth track Denial suffers from a lack of direction due to the different styles that are crammed into its duration of just under three minutes. It’s certainly good that Heylel aren’t afraid to experiment but unfortunately it didn’t pay off this time.
The vocals are perhaps the biggest problem; the balance between them and the instrumentation isn’t quite right and they’re just rather overpowering, inevitably driving the listeners attention away from the instrumentation and focusing it entirely on the vocals instead. It’s unfortunate because there’s some great little technical moments to be heard but it’s all too easy for them to merge into the background instead.
All in all, this is an EP that has potential but unfortunately falls short – with a bit more time spent on it and more attention given to the balance between vocals and instrumentation, this could have been something special.
5/10
