While I was wondering what bands were similar to Bleed From Within, my conversations with GPT led me to Sylosis. First, I checked the album distribution in the band’s “Popular” section on Spotify; the distribution of tracks across albums seemed pretty balanced to me. I started by checking out the album with the cover I liked the most: Cycle of Suffering.
The first track, "Empty Prophets," really did start off like a BFW track.
Sylosis — Empty Prophets
As the first track was ending, I took out my EarPods—which only had one earbud working—and switched to my over-ear gaming headset. It was right at that moment that my gear made me wonder just how spot-on my idea to start a music review blog really was :)
For years, I’d kept my distance from the metalcore genre; I looked down on it. Because even though I have roots in hardcore and alternative music, my soul had been shaped by gothic and doom metal for over 28 years. Ever since Bleed From Within’s incredible performance at the 2025 Headbangers Festival, my preconceptions—like “oh, so this is what metalcore is like?”—were shattered. And that’s how my musical journey led me to the topic of today’s post.
Sylosis! Cycle of Suffering I’m currently blown away by the second track, “I Sever,” from the album. I think I’ve just added another album to my all-time favorites list.
Sylosis — I Sever
To be honest, I’ve been putting off writing this post for days. I’m not very good at writing—back in high school, my classmate Öykü always wrote my essays for me. I hope I can express myself as well as I’d like in this and my future posts. I was saying I’d been putting it off, but when the idea of writing a music review blog popped into my head for the 665th time, this time I actually took concrete action for the first time. I talked to GPT. I gave it the posts I’d written on the music channel on Ekşi and asked, “What’s our situation, bro? Are we going to make it?” And to be honest, it gave me a little push. If you’re going to curse, let’s all go curse OpenAI together.
About 7 days ago, after this idea resurfaced, I started planning the blog’s software infrastructure, brainstorming names, designing and launching the site, and setting up an author/admin panel—and before I knew it, I realized I was just procrastinating again. Yes, I was building the infrastructure really well, but this time I wasn’t going to let it slip away. I was going to break out of my comfort zone. For the past 48 hours, though, I’ve been wondering what to write about or what to review. Finally, I decided to listen to my first impulse and write about that. I don’t want this post to turn into just another metalhead’s ramblings about wanting to write a blog post rather than an album review—we’ll get to those later.
Getting back to the album, I was sad when I finished the fifth track, “Calcified.” I was sad that a track like that had come to an end. The album is really going strong. It’s got a great groove, and the guitars have melodies that are more accessible than those on *BFW*. There are solos. You get swept up in the melodies and find yourself focusing on the music while listening to the album. Overall, the riffs don’t get repetitive—they’re constantly changing. I’m not talking about a melody shift that’s like, “Look how many riffs we have,” but the guitar work is very listenable.
Sylosis — Calcified
The openings of the tracks on this album are excellent. For example, the seventh track, “Idle Hands,” opens in a very compelling way. It really draws you in. It also ends with a gradual fade-out—something I haven’t heard in a long time. This song won me over. Or rather, I was the one who was won over.
Sylosis — Idle Hands
The band is from England and was founded in 2000 by guitarist and vocalist Josh Middleton when he was 15 years old—he even performed live at BFW for a short while (I’m so glad I know a metalcore band). Every now and then, I open Metal Archives to check out the details. It turns out my enthusiasm for this album wasn’t for nothing—according to information on Last.fm and Metal Archives, it’s one of the band’s most highly rated albums.
It’s also not accurate to reduce the band solely to metalcore. There are plenty of melodic death metal influences as well, particularly in tracks 10 and 11, “Devils in Their Eyes” and “Disintegrate.”
Sylosis — Devils in Their Eyes
Sylosis — Disintegrate
The album’s final track, “Abandon,” is an emotionally charged song dominated by clean vocals—almost like a badge of honor for this striking, jarring, and powerful album. Moreover, it seems this track has resonated with more than just me—when I looked at the streaming numbers for the tracks on this album on Spotify, I saw that “Abandon” was the most-streamed track among those with fewer than a million streams.
Sylosis — Abandon
Now that I’ve reached the end of the album, I suppose I’m nearing the end of my first post as well. Hoping this has been a nice post, I’d like to say: may the breakdown in the middle of “Disintegrate” resonate with all of us.