Pupil Slicer
Fleshwork
Prosthetic Records
First off can we say it’s great to have the snarling feral beast that is Pupil Slicer back, as they launch into the post hardcore inflected ‘Heather’ they are sounding very punchy with a whole new bass sound courtesy of new addition Luke Booth who favours a more fluid style in contrast to the slap and pop of previous records, this is the first stylistic change you notice, the second thing you notice is that there is more melody in the riffing compared to their past output. This is not to say they aren’t reliably savage, they really are, and Katie Davies’ vocals are just as serrating and acidic as ever, but there is a definite shift in songwriting towards a more solid structure.
Quick-fire hyper blasts ‘Gordian’ and ‘Sacrosant’ are straight up face melters with reverberated clean sung passages and the ghosts of electronic accompaniment haunting the arrangements, this is a recurring theme throughout the record, adding depth and ear candy in exactly the right spots. ‘Innocence’ brings a cathedral echo to a haunting stomp. What this album has in spades is a dystopian atmosphere; it sounds like what would happen if heavy metal was left to rust, in the best possible way, like a vengeful cyborg arising from the scrapheap to exact revenge. The rabid ‘Black Scrawl’ is a nod to the all-out chaos we have come to expect from this band. ‘Nomad’ brings blast beats and blackened drama to the mix alongside that all destroying hardcore stomp this band employs so well.
The monolithic riffs of Fleshwork are well established in this reviewer’s brain as being some of the widest, most forceful and satisfying grooves of 2025. This track is an absolute beast and will be on heavy rotation for the foreseeable future, once again employing arpeggiated synth passages right in the back of the mix to subliminally lift the track in such a clever way. ‘White Noise’ almost sounds happy next to the rest of the record with its shoegaze adjacent wanderings, and it’s a well-programmed piece of fractured beauty amidst the devastation. It’s then down to ‘Cenote’ to take us home in all of its immersive glory. This album is such a welcome return for a band whose slice just got a whole lot sharper and more precise, but way deadlier for it.
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Reviewed By George Miller