After a couple of EPs, the UK’s Sylosis is prepared to unleash their brand of extremity upon the masses. Their debut CD is Conclusion Of An Age. Guitarist Josh Middleton introduces us to the band, their sound, upcoming tour plans, his musical background and more.

Chad Bowar: Give us a brief history of Sylosis.
Josh: We formed back in late 2000 as a bunch of kids at school. We just wanted to play metal and mainly loved thrash and old school death metal.

Over the years we went through various lineup changes. We couldn't really tour much for ages because of our age (we couldn't drive and there wasn't much of an underground scene for our kind of music). We did a couple of EPs released in the UK on a small indie label. In November, 2007 we got an email from Nuclear Blast saying they'd love to work with us and we signed to them a month later.

What does the band name signify?
It's such a stupid name and we changed the spelling around so we tend to keep it a secret. We were young at the time and wanted something that sounded gruesome.

Describe the sound of Conclusion Of An Age.
The foundation of our sound is old school Bay Area thrash. We don't downtune and we don't play breakdowns. We do like to incorporate lots of different metal styles and textures into our music. We like make all of our songs really epic. We like progressive stuff, brutal stuff and melodic stuff.

What are some of the lyrical subjects?
The album does have a lot of running themes, but it's not a concept album really.

Lyrically, the album deals with the end of the human race. The album title refers to nature reclaiming the earth again, which is also depicted in the artwork. It’s the world living on without us. We're not preaching about anything, we don't have any strong beliefs, it's just observational really.

It’s been out in Europe for a while. How has the response been?
It's been really positive. Our music’s fairly diverse so we seem to do quite well touring with different types of bands. The European crowds were great and seemed really into it which was great.

What are your U.S. expectations?
I think we could do really well in the U.S. It's great to have a label like Nuclear Blast behind us. We just need to get on some killer tours out there. There are tons of bands to compete with so we'll need to work at it.

How did you decide on Scott Atkins to produce the CD?
I'd heard an EP he recorded for a friend’s band and was blown away by the production. He was in a UK band called Stampin' Ground so I think he generated a bit of a buzz around his production through that maybe. All the bands he recorded sounded so tight and we wanted someone to push us really hard performance wise.

How was he to work with?
He was great to work with. We were completely prepared before we went in the studio but we did leave some room for being creative and experimenting with different ideas. He was great for coming up with ideas for riffs or changing beats. He really got involved and did a proper production job, not just engineering.

What are your upcoming tour plans?
We're just about to head off for a month around Europe and the UK with The Black Dahlia Murder, Cephalic Carnage and Psycroptic. We're stoked to be on tour with some killer bands!

Any plans of coming to the U.S.?
There's been talk of it. It's definitely something we want to do as soon as we can. It's just a matter of making sure it's a worthwhile tour and we can afford to do it.

Any tour horror stories?
Nothing too interesting I guess. We do like to drink a lot on tour. On the last European tour we were sharing a van with A Life Once Lost and the driver put petrol in a diesel van which led to us spending the day on the side of the freeway and walking miles to some tiny village to get kebabs.

Do you remember the first show your band played?
Yes, it was a battle of the bands and we won it which was cool. We covered “Stripped Raped and Strangled” by Cannibal Corpse as an encore.

What band did you have the best time touring with?
I guess the funniest tour was with Suicide Silence and Abigail Williams back in October 2006 in the UK. Just loads of funny stuff happened.

How did you get started in music?
My dad's so into music although he doesn't play an instrument. I was hearing it all the time as a kid. When I was like 7 I think I started buying Beatles albums on cassette.

Who are some fellow guitarists you admire?
Dimebag is my biggest inspiration, but I'm not really a bluesy player. I guess his expressive style is what rubbed off on me. Other than that James Murphy is a huge inspiration as are Peter and Ola from Soilwork.

Anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for the interview. Our album hits U.S. stores the end of January. If you like metal in general then check it out. Hopefully we'll be over to the U.S. soon!