The Anatomy of Chaos : Inside “Fleshwork”: How PUPIL SLICER Turned Chaos Into Connection
With their third album ‘Fleshwork’, London’s PUPIL SLICER mathcore trio have carved their name permanently into the anatomy of modern heavy music. What began as mathcore disarray on 2021’s ‘Mirrors’ has evolved through the cinematic sweep of ‘Blossom’ into something altogether new — a visceral, intelligent, and emotionally charged masterpiece that fuses industrial abrasion, post-rock grandeur, and blackened fury into one cohesive, cathartic release.
Far from chaos for chaos’s sake, ‘Fleshwork’ captures the urgency of our times — chaotic, angry, defiant — and distills it into an album that is as confrontational as it is connective. Tracks like « Heather » and « Sacrosanct » throb with mechanical intensity, while Nomad and Cenote stretch genre boundaries to breaking point, weaving black metal, post-hardcore, and shoegaze into something ferociously human. The result is an eight-limbed storm of sound and purpose — and perhaps the most diverse and essential heavy record of 2025.
Led by Kate Davies, whose uncompromising vocals and socially conscious lyrics give voice to the marginalized and misunderstood, PUPIL SLICER have refined their own form of what they call “trans-inclusive radical hatred” — a mission statement that fuses identity, politics, and rage into a singular sonic force. Alongside drummer Josh Andrews and new bassist Luke Booth, Davies leads a trio that embodies the uncompromising evolution of extreme music in the 2020s: fearless, self-aware, and impossible to categorize.
If Blossom proved that extremity could be beautiful, ‘Fleshwork’ proves that beauty can be devastating. This is an album that unites grindcore, industrial, doom, black metal, and post-rock — not as a gimmick, but as a genuine act of boundary destruction. The closing track « Cenote » encapsulates the record’s emotional core: eight minutes of dynamic crescendos and haunting ambience inspired by the mistreatment of disabled people in modern society — a political scream turned into art of startling grace.
Within a UK heavy scene that’s fast becoming a crucible of experimentation — from Heriot’s industrial ferocity to Rolo Tomassi’s avant-garde elegance — PUPIL SLICER stand at the very forefront. ‘Fleshwork’, freshly released by Prosthetic Records (Dreamwell, Eyes, Sunrot, Wuw, etc.) isn’t just an album; it’s a defining statement of cathartic, compassionate chaos.
