Sylosis - Monolith

Can't believe it's been six years. Still their best album for me. Lovely dark, melodic thrash metal. The title track might be my favourite of theirs. Shame it's followed by the weakest track from this album.

I was playing along to some of their songs from Conclusion Of An Age and Edge Of The Earth on guitar earlier this week and holy shit is that stuff fast. I used to be able to play along with Teras' middle section without too much trouble, but I've been playing way too many other genres the last few years that I can't keep up anymore.

Written by Zap on 17.11.2018 at 21:48

Can't believe it's been six years. Still their best album for me. Lovely dark, melodic thrash metal. The title track might be my favourite of theirs. Shame it's followed by the weakest track from this album.

It's curious that we both like Sylosis so much, but seem to enjoy different aspects of them. I'd probably have Monolith the song as one of my less preferred on the album (although I still firmly like it), and Paradox is amongst my favoured (although to be honest, it seems hard to rank a favourite track amongst Out From Below, What Dwells Within, The River, Paradox, A Dying Vine, and Enshrined, and I feel unfair not giving the others their due - this and Edge Of The Earth are both mainstays in my all-time top 5 albums).

I actually learnt Apparitions from EOTE on bass a few months ago, it was approaching my upper limit of speed so I doubt I could handle the likes of Dystopia or Kingdom of Solitude.

Also, I know you didn't like Dormant Heart, but did you ever check out Josh's project Passages from last year? I actually preferred it to DH (which I admittedly liked a lot more than you did), not entirely sure what it would class as, it's got hints of doom and post- in but it's not really either of those genres. Along with Clairvoyant by The Contortionist it's probably my most-played album released in 2017

Written by musclassia on 19.11.2018 at 00:30

It's curious that we both like Sylosis so much, but seem to enjoy different aspects of them. I'd probably have Monolith the song as one of my less preferred on the album (although I still firmly like it), and Paradox is amongst my favoured (although to be honest, it seems hard to rank a favourite track amongst Out From Below, What Dwells Within, The River, Paradox, A Dying Vine, and Enshrined, and I feel unfair not giving the others their due - this and Edge Of The Earth are both mainstays in my all-time top 5 albums).

I actually learnt Apparitions from EOTE on bass a few months ago, it was approaching my upper limit of speed so I doubt I could handle the likes of Dystopia or Kingdom of Solitude.

Also, I know you didn't like Dormant Heart, but did you ever check out Josh's project Passages from last year? I actually preferred it to DH (which I admittedly liked a lot more than you did), not entirely sure what it would class as, it's got hints of doom and post- in but it's not really either of those genres. Along with Clairvoyant by The Contortionist it's probably my most-played album released in 2017

It's not easy to pick a favourite from this album. To me it is their most consistent album, but at the same time the most memorable one. And as you said, it feels unfair to rank any song as the favourite one since those other songs you mentioned are worthy contenders as well. As for Paradox... I just never got into that song the same way as the others. It's fine, definitely not bad, but it just sounds a bit normal after the moody title track. Maybe the placement in the tracklist was wrong

I am aware of Josh's solo project but hadn't heard of Passages yet, thanks for the heads-up. I was actually going to re-listen Dormant Heart soon in the hopes that it clicks this time. Will move onto Passages after that

Also practiced a lot this week and I can keep up with Teras again (the rhythm section at least.) I'll be trying some other ones soon, haha.

Written by Zap on 19.11.2018 at 17:27


It's not easy to pick a favourite from this album. To me it is their most consistent album, but at the same time the most memorable one. And as you said, it feels unfair to rank any song as the favourite one since those other songs you mentioned are worthy contenders as well. As for Paradox... I just never got into that song the same way as the others. It's fine, definitely not bad, but it just sounds a bit normal after the moody title track. Maybe the placement in the tracklist was wrong

I am aware of Josh's solo project but hadn't heard of Passages yet, thanks for the heads-up. I was actually going to re-listen Dormant Heart soon in the hopes that it clicks this time. Will move onto Passages after that

Also practiced a lot this week and I can keep up with Teras again (the rhythm section at least.) I'll be trying some other ones soon, haha.

It's genuinely difficult for me to decide between EOTE and Monolith, I feel they're both insanely consistent and insanely high quality throughout; I feel like I'd probably say Monolith is the 'better' album, in that it's a bit more matured and has a few more different things going on. However, I think I have slightly higher emotional investment in EOTE, just because it took a band I had extensively enjoyed the debut album of, and completely redefined my expectations for them to the extent I lost quite a lot of interest in the debut in comparison, whilst Monolith was less of a seismic shift and warranted slightly less obsession on my part. As far as Paradox goes, I just really enjoy the outro couple of minutes, particularly the atmosphere with the clean vox at the end. I think it does have the capacity to get lost in the mix of the track list, with something as moody at the title track beforehand and as aggressive as A Dying Vine afterwards.

I'm not sure where the best place to find Passages is, the first 2 songs are on youtube but I just had a quick look and the rest of them must've been taken down. Not sure he ever put them on spotify either; I guess if you like the title track you're unlikely to be disappointed by the rest, as I would say the strongest tracks are towards the end.