With Fleshwork, London’s mathcore visionaries Pupil Slicer deliver their most ambitious, emotionally annihilating, and fully realized work to date—an album that fuses serrated mathcore ferocity with blackened despair, industrial grime, shimmering synth atmospheres, and cinematic world-building. It’s not just a refinement of their sound; it’s a transformation.

From the opening seconds of “Heather,” it’s clear that Pupil Slicer have entered a new era. The track erupts with razor-edged riffs and thick, punishing bass that feels like a wrecking ball made of concrete and rust. The drums hit with both precision and chaos—mathcore spasms collapsing into hardcore grooves without warning—while the vocals slice through with a venom that recalls the emotional violence of early Emma Boster. Underneath the intensity, however, lie swirling synths and expanding sonic textures that widen the soundscape, hinting at the album’s larger cinematic vision. The production is grimy yet clear, intentional yet overwhelming: the perfect framing for a band building emotional devastation out of noise.

Across Fleshwork, the rhythm section becomes the album’s heartbeat. Tracks like “Gordian” anchor their frantic riffs with deep, groovy basslines, while “Sacrosanct” moves like tectonic plates grinding together—dense, slow, and crushing. The drums throughout are a masterclass in contrast: frantic blasting, jagged mathcore stops, hardcore bounce, and sudden shifts that keep the songs in constant motion. Even at its most chaotic, the album never feels directionless; every hit lands with purpose.

Vocally, this is Pupil Slicer at their most tortured and emotionally raw. The screams throughout the record are sharper, colder, and more desperate than anything in the band’s past. On “Sacrosanct” and especially the harrowing centerpiece “Nomad,” the vocals reach a level of anguish that sounds almost uncontainable. “Nomad” blends blackened tremolo riffs, looming synth pads, and isolated, echoing shrieks that feel like they’re being torn from some cavernous void. The band’s use of backing and distant vocal layers adds a ghostlike presence across the album—especially in “Innocence” and the title track—evoking a washed-out, 90s alt-goth haze that expands the emotional palette in surprising ways.

The band’s experimental instincts flare much brighter on Fleshwork than on any previous release. “White Noise” is one of the album’s most striking left turns—a burst of choral, almost divine light that cuts through the album’s darkness. Its ecstatic, shimmering vocal layers rise above rapid drumming and deep bass, creating a moment of emotional catharsis that feels massive without relying on heaviness. Meanwhile, songs like “Innocence” and “Nomad” incorporate alien synth work, warped sound design, and eerie atmosphere, transforming the chaos into something almost science-fictional.

Still, when Pupil Slicer go for pure violence, they go hard. “Black Scrawl” unleashes dissonant riffing, feral screams, and bass-boosted breakdowns thick enough to shake concrete, complete with a well-placed “blegh” that feels like a knowing wink amid the carnage. The album’s closer, “Cenote,” stretches the band’s blackened side into widescreen scope—swelling blast beats, massive low-end surges, mournful tremolo melodies, and chilling backing vocals. It feels like the emotional and sonic culmination of everything the band has been building toward, a final plunge into the abyss that still finds beauty in the descent.

With Fleshwork, Pupil Slicer have not only evolved—they’ve ascended. This is a record defined by tension and release, beauty and brutality, chaos and clarity. It’s dense, emotional, furious, ethereal, and meticulously crafted from top to bottom. By embracing atmospheric textures, blackened grandeur, and choral luminance alongside their mathcore foundations, Pupil Slicer have created a career-defining statement—one that firmly establishes them as one of the most forward-thinking heavy bands in the UK today.