Live Review : Fit For An Autopsy + Sylosis + Darkest Hour + Heriot @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on November 26th 2024

On paper the billing for this evening’s show feels distinctly skew-whiff. Fit For An Autopsy are on a quite impressive upward trajectory. They have broken free from the confines and the preconceptions of Deathcore and have cemented themselves a berth in the one-to-watch category. Pairing them as a co-headliner with Sylosis on the face of it feels mismatched because, well Sylosis have been around forever without ever really making their mark. It's hard to imagine a British metal scene without Sylosis plugging away in its lower echelons trying to make a name for themselves. Don't get us wrong, we at ROCKFLESH Towers love Sylosis, it's just that we've never ever envisaged them as being of a Ritz headliner status. Add to all that the fact that the much-fancied media darlings Heriot are sat slap bang at the bottom of the bill and the whole structure feels a little, odd.

However, what we should learn is to never underestimate a promoter's ability to instinctively understand the mood of the ticket-buying fraternity. What on paper may well seem nonsensical. in a cold room on a Tuesday night, when many other distractions are going on in the city, suddenly makes perfect sense. Heriot enters stage left to a seriously depleted crowd. Even as the venue starts to fill there is not much interaction or even interest in the band on stage. It becomes very evident that whilst Heriot are making serious waves and churning up a humongous amount of interest, isn't necessarily with this crowd or cross-section of the metal masses.

Those who have assembled here tonight, and therefore chosen this over the forbidden pleasures of Sleep Token, are purveyors of buzzsaw riffs and humongous breakdowns. They don't necessarily click or connect with Heriot’s distinctly non-linear and deconstructive take on heavy music. What Heriot are doing is astonishing. The riffs are scuzzy and corrosive, and nothing feels like it is a right angle to anything else. It's like they have a preordained set of notes for each track but will happily play them in any order they see fit. Their two fingers up to convention approach is both refreshing and revitalising and there is something distinctly exciting and enticing about what they're doing. Even though frontperson Debbie Gough and drummer Julian Gage make a concerted efforts to hype up the crowd and to manifest a mosh pit it doesn’t quite land this evening. However, take it from us, when Heriot headline festivals, as they inevitably will do, everybody will claim that they were here and saw what all the fuss was about.

Darkest Hour prove to be very much more the audience's collective poison. The Ritz’s infamous bouncy dancefloor is now packed and there is a palpable level of expectation for this long-running metallic institution. Whilst they may hail from Washington DC, Darkest Hour have always had a distinctly European flavour to their brand of metal. That flavour is the delectably Scandinavian melodic death. It's collision of soaring guitars and guttural vocals certainly clicks with the masses out front. A pit starts to swirl in the space just before the lighting desk and synchronised headbanging springs up all over the shop. Darkest Hour don't seem to be doing anything radically new, but what they do is done at a frantic pace and with an enigmatic level of quality.  It feeds into that basic desire for brutal power that pulsates through the crowd and by the culmination of their messily half-hour set they have won over a good chunk of those present.

Somewhere along the line Sylosis have become a big thing. Somewhere along the line, they have transcended beyond their "always the bridesmaid and never the bride” position of the band everybody values but nobody seems to like. Somewhere along the line they have amassed enough goodwill to have a pretty darn full (at least in the downstairs area) Ritz bounce along feeding out of their hand. It may well be that Josh Milton has brought over an army of admirers from his time in Architects, but without us really noticing Sylosis now command a sizeable fanbase. The reaction as they take the stage is astonishing, as is the musical evolution that they have been through (see our Bloodstock interview here). What we are presented with is an immaculately rounded and perfectly rendered metal band. The riffs are ferocious, the drumming is on point and the stage presence is alluring.

For all their transformation into a slick, careering machine, there are still callbacks to the plucky young thrash-playing youngsters that were vying for our attention in the early 2000’s. Only Josh and Ali may remain (and the latter seems to be AWOL this evening) but they still take pride in their beginnings. Josh enquires whether we have any old-school Sylosis fans in the house before promptly slamming into the first of two visits to their debut album. The title track to “Conclusion of an Age”, has (pardon the pun) aged incredibly well. It is a full-throttle thrash attack, full of vim and vigour and startlingly dynamic riffs. The pit, already pulsating with violent intent, increases its velocity and rushes round in a blur of flailing limbs.

Interestingly, the vast majority of new material aired is saved for the final furlongs of the set. Rather than lose the audience and send them off for strategic toilet and beer runs, the songs from last year's rather dandy “A Sign of Things to Come” are the ones that galvanise the crowd and truly bring them to life. Yes, it's good to hear the old stuff and it is well received, but it becomes blindingly obvious that the point at which the gathered hordes are truly connecting in with Sylosis is via their latter day work. Josh has been doing this now for nearly a quarter of a century and you can see the relief and the wonder in his eyes about the reverence that they are now held in. It has taken an awful lot of work and an awful lot of failure to finally reach this point, but the glee on Josh’s face shows that has been worth every bead of sweat.

For all the emergence of Fit for an Autopsy as a force to be reckoned with, there is an obvious exodus of punters after Sylosis. The middle section is still impressively volatile but the sides around the bars significantly thin out. All of this is a crying shame as New Jersey stalwarts are on fine form. There were long emerged out of the cocoon of Deathcore and now trade in a complex but also corrosively brutal form of modern metal. There is so much weight to the performance and the precision riffs rain down like a torrent of sizzling energy. They create layer upon layer of intricate noise that beautifully and cohesively interacts with each other. To dismiss it off-hand as Deathcore misses the elaborate and multifaceted nature of what they are doing. It remains monolithically heavy and drives forward at a gargantuan rate, but it is not in any shape or form simple or dumb. This is a highly intelligent and precision-engineered take on metal, welded together by virtuoso musicians who know exactly what they're doing.

Whilst actual numbers may well have depleted, the reaction from the audience reaches a frenzied fever pitch. Each track is greeted by a Herculean roar and the pit is on the verge of becoming a sentient being, perpetually fuelled by the kinetic energy it is emitting. Joe Badolato may be in the greater scheme of things a relative newcomer, but he has meticulously carved out his role within the band. This evening he looms impressively over the front rows dictating out his howls with a primal authority. Fit for an Autopsy don’t do long epics, so whilst their set length is in parity with Sylosis, they are done and dusted roughly fifty minutes after they emerge. But what they may lack in length, they more than make up for in girth and sheer brutal power. Astonishingly heavy but also sophisticated weaved, they present a masterclass in orchestrated viciousness.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Fit For An Autopsy + Sylosis + Darkest Hour + Heriot