Album Review: PSOTY – Sunless (Candlelight Records)

PSOTY (formerly known as Pet Slimmers of the Year) formed through a mutual love of all things big and beautiful. Often cited as “post-metal”, this prodigious four-piece transcend any one genre, instead focussing on melody and dynamics, combining multi-layered guitars, hypnotic bass-lines, crushing riffs and groove oriented drum patterns to create a live sound much greater than the sum of its components.

The band started at the end of 2008 in Cambridgeshire after the dissolution of previous musical projects and quickly established their distinctive sound. Releasing their first self-titled EP in 2009 through Lost Children gained the band rave reviews around the online circuit and a healthy underground following. This would lead on to the demand for the second EP, “And The Sky Fell”, released in January 2011 also through Lost Children. This recording was extremely well received and along with the inclusion of selected tracks on a handful of compilation albums and years of shows to an ever appreciating audience the band was beginning to gather momentum. 2014 saw the band sign with Candlelight Records for the release of their first full-length album ‘Fragments of Uniforms’ to critical praise from the heavy music community.

2019 will see PSOTY release their new album ’Sunless’ on 13th September 2019 once again through Candlelight Records.

The band describes the album as:

A much more driven record. It’s more direct and aggressive than our previous work. We’re excited for people to hear it. It’s exactly where we want to be musically.

Depth. Sunless has so much depth it is unreal. Yes, it is true you can lump PSOTY into the ‘post’ category but to do so would be doing this band a disservice. They’re so much more and on Sunless, the scope of their thinking is absolutely spell-binding.

It captures the imagination immediately with Oil Blood, a mournfully sung epic that drifts along with hypnotic guitars and hefty drum hits. Watcher of the Abyss then follows with even more hypnotising riffs, drawn out across 10 minutes where it twist and turns like clouds in the wind. Yes, it’s soulful but it’s also surprisingly heavy, getting almost doomy near the end.

Smartly, after two huge tracks, PSOTY offer up a shorter more digestible listen with Acheron. As well as the Charon, which comes a little later on. They serve to break up the album up with haunting short numbers that fit amongst the post-inspired wonderment of the likes of Queen of Hades and King of Ephyra. Bookending Charon, these two tracks are exceptionally well constructed tracks. The latter’s crescendo fills the soul to bursting point.

If there’s one track that doesn’t quite hold the attention, at least for half its run-time, it’s Obscura. However, the latter half of the track has a wonderfully morose melodic drop and tear-jerking vocals. It doesn’t start strongly but sure as hell ends strongly.

Not just with the latter part of Obscura but with The Yawning Void too. A vocal-less track, the rest of the instruments pick up the slack and pound out a really memorable rhythm. One that leaves a constant tense feeling as if it could shoot off into a heavier direction at anytime even though it doesn’t. A very smart closer.

PSOTY – Sunless Track Listing:

1. Oil Blood
2. Watcher of the Abyss
3. Acheron
4. Queen of Hades
5. Charon
6. King of Ephyra
7. Obscura
8. The Yawning Void

Links

Pre-order | Bandcamp | Big Cartel | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Candlelight Records