Dormant Heart is the latest offering from British heavy metallers Sylosis and it is perhaps their best album to date.
For me, Sylosis has always been a band on the cusp of greatness; each of their albums has had the makings of something special but they haven’t quite managed to achieve it, releasing ‘good’ albums rather than ‘great’ ones. However, it’s like they’ve finally perfected the formula with Dormant Heart simply because it gives so much.
Sure, it has its flaws. To Build A Tomb comes off as fairly repetitive and Indoctrinated is difficult to connect with due to its introduction that has no real direction, but they more than make up for it in other areas. Opener Where The Wolves Come To Die is like an explosion waiting to happen as it builds things up and up – what a way to get the album off to a roaring start! – and Leech features one of those memorable guitar riffs that’ll be stuck in your head for days on end.
However, the standout piece of Dormant Heart is absolutely the closing number, Quiescent. It showcases another side to the band at first, with smoothly delivered clean and oh-so-emotive vocals atop of a fairly simplistic acoustic guitar line – and then when the halfway mark of the song is reached, the track does a complete 180 and a heavy section kicks in, hitting you like a tonne of bricks. It’s almost like two tracks sewn together into one, showcasing that the band can write both melodic and heavy music to a very high standard.
Sylosis are unquestionably back in full force with Dormant Heart – quite simply, this is an album you really don’t want to miss.
8/10
