Pupil Slicer have proven that they are one of those bands that set out to properly evolve and reinvent themselves with each release, which puts them squarely in my sights as a potential top tier band. While sophomore album Blossom initially had me disappointed with its addition of poppier choruses to the acerbic mathcore of debut Mirrors, we all know how that ended up. Despite my initial knee-jerk reaction to all things pop, Blossom‘s sustained heaviness won me over in the end. Kate Davies spoke at the time of its release about being inspired by Nine Inch Nails‘ The Downward Spiral and that album’s structure. Now, Fleshworks arrives with an album cover reminiscent of NIN‘s art-style, and singles that sound even more commercial than Blossom. As someone who spun The Fragile on repeat for the entirety of my teenage years, the question sitting at the top of my mind then is: can Davies and company handle the commercial sound as well as a heroin-fueled Trent Reznor?
Fleshwork is a work of strengths and weaknesses. The new element to Pupil Slicer‘s overall style turns out to be a focus on sludge-fueled hardcore, with the jittery math metal influence taking a step back. It’s more like Converge than The Dillinger Escape plan, indeed, as Davies describes it. When it works, songs sound huge as in “Sacrosanct”, where the trudging bass drops play well with the creeping lead guitar and elongated roars of the vocals. Songs like this one makes room for new bassist Luke Booth to shine since the bass is integral to the impact of this style. The pop influence of Blossom shows up in the more harmonically minded “White Noise”, with its focused chorus, and in the brighter birdlike samples of “Heather”, marking a duality between the dominant styles of Fleshwork. There is a divide between these two that is successfully bridged in numbers like “Nomad” and “Cenote” (the latter recalling the black metal-focused closer off Mirrors). Unfortunately, Pupil Slicer don’t bridge this as successfully outside of these songs, and it defines the rest of the album. As much as I enjoy Davies‘ efforts to not sing clean vocals in a typical pop fashion (the “you’ll never see me fly”-line from “Blossom” always cracks me up in a positive way), this feels a bit overdone on Fleshwork and adds to this divide.
Fleshwork is a more honest and direct album than previous outings, an easy album to like, yet not to love. Its main genres see an uneasy fit, and apart from “Sacrosanct”, I always get the feeling that it doesn’t gel properly until “Nomad” hits at the center of its track list. The album sounds like it takes notes from the work of countrymen Heriot, exhibiting similar issues in songwriting despite the greatly effective production that stomps on your face as soon as you hit play. Contrasting the songs musically with the shorter numbers on Mirrors, my biggest gripe becomes clear, and the title track is the best example of this. The sludge influence has little room to breathe, and fails to develop into something that stays with me after it ends. This is true for more than half of Fleshwork, and it’s a shame, as I quite like the new sound Pupil Slicer are going for. It’s clear that a lot of effort has gone into making this album, but it’s not its commercial attitude that brings it down. Rather, the songwriting fails to capitalize on the trajectory of the songs, cutting things short when this kind of trudging stomp needs a better developed payoff. In the end, Fleshwork is a serviceable album that I doubt has the longevity the band expects, for both old fans and newcomers.
