Despite hailing from the UK (Reading, Berkshire, to be exact), it turns out that Sylosis have a deep admiration for first wave thrash metal from the Bay Area of San Francisco. But on their latest album, Dormant Heart (which will be released on January 23rd in the US, via Nuclear Blast Records), Sylosis refuses to be one-dimensional stylistically. Sure, they're still heavy, but it's not all about the thrash, as the tempos aren't all set to "rapid fire," and on at least one occasion, an acoustic guitar is introduced to the proceedings. Shouter/guitarist Josh Middleton spoke with BraveWords correspondent Greg Prato about Sylosis' fourth full-length studio effort overall, as well as his band's influences, touring plans, and what could possibly be on the horizon in the future.

BraveWords: Let's start with discussing the new album, Dormant Heart.

Josh Middleton: "It's a bit of a blur now, because it was quite a while ago. We're always very ahead of ourselves in terms of writing. We never want to rush writing an album, we always want to make sure it ages on every element, every song. So even before we'd recorded Monolith…we'd finished writing Monolith but we hadn't even entered the studio to record those songs, we still began writing this next album, even before recording Monolith, our last album. So the writing process is an ongoing thing that's just constantly happening. Like I said, we don't want to be rushed to write an album. In terms of the album, it was done throughout I guess 2012 and 2013. The way we kind of work is we just have loads of songs on the go at any one time. So instead of writing a song and finishing it and moving on to the next one, we'll just have a few riffs for one song, start another song, and write a chorus idea, and you just build them all up at the same time. In terms of the recording, we're really used to the whole process now, and it was quite quick and easy. We recorded drums back in March of this year, which was with our previous drummer, Rob [Callard], he played on the album. We did the drums in like five days, then we went on tour for a while, then we came back and did all the guitars and bass and vocals. And I produced and engineered the guitar, bass, and vocals - again, it was pretty quick and easy. I'm at the point where I'm pretty confident handling the production as well as playing. We really wanted to try and aim for a live kind of feel to the album - not overplay things or make it sound like robots played it. We wanted to capture everything quite quickly and not second-guess anything too much, to try and keep that kind of live/organic feel to it. It was a very drawn out writing period, and when we were in the studio, it was very quick. But it was broken up with touring in between and recording sessions, and some summer festivals. So it was kind of a long, broken up experience - either in terms of writing and recording. Nothing sticks out too prominently, it was just business as usual in that respect."

BraveWords: Does the album title have any special meaning behind it?

Josh Middleton: "Kind of, yeah. It deals with a lot of the things that run throughout the album lyrically. Basically, what that is, is how a lot of people - including myself, I don't want to sound like I'm above anyone or anything - just kind of go through life, going through the motions, just kind of wrapped up in their own little bubble, and not really paying attention to the world at large. Not paying much attention to life outside of their own life. Just trying to be a bit more aware in terms of society or maybe even politically, or what's going on in the environment - that kind of thing. A lot of people just 'sleeping through life,' and wake up, go to work, put on the TV, and try not to think about all the serious issues, because it can be quite depressing once you start to really look at what's going on in the world."

BraveWords: Which are your favorite tracks off the new album?

Josh Middleton: "I think my favorite song is 'Victims and Pawns,' which is the second track on the album, and that one is just really heavy and really intense, and it's got a really epic, really eerie chorus. I really like the section in the middle, where there's all these kind of weird percussion sounds - it sounds quite industrial. Not as in industrial type of music, but industrial in terms of it sounds like some kind of big, doomy, evil warehouse or something. All these steam whistles and clangs and oil drums. I really like the first track on the album, 'Where the Wolves Come to Die,' because it's very different for us - at least in terms of opening up the album, which normally, we like to let people know that we're a thrash band. But now that we're more established, we figured we'd try the opposite, and just do a really slow, doomy song. It's kind of an intro song, because it's short. And the other one is 'Quiescent,' which is the closing track - a mostly acoustic, prog rock kind of thing, that's still very dark at the same time. I think I'm most proud of that from just a general songwriting point. I think it's one of the best songs that we've written."

BraveWords: Who would you say are some of Sylosis' top musical influences?

Josh Middleton: "Metallica - especially …And Justice for All, that's one of the main influences. And a lot of the old school Bay Area thrash stuff. Bands like Sepultura, as well. Death are a huge influence. The album Symbolic by Death is one of the biggest influences, as well. And then, there are much more doomy bands or progressive bands - we like bands like Cult of Luna, Neurosis, and Pink Floyd, and stuff like that. When it comes to the metal stuff, we don't really listen to anything later than the late '80s, and then for the more progressive stuff, it's either more doomy bands, or the '70s prog rock kind of thing."

BraveWords: What are the band's touring plans?

Josh Middleton: "It's quite early to say at this stage. We'll be doing a UK and European tour, then we've got a bunch of European festivals over the summer, which are always really good. And we intend to get back to America - hopefully in the summer, if we can, if not, the end of the year. But we don't have anything planned for that just yet. But we intend to come back over there."

BraveWords: Any future plans beyond this album and tour?

Josh Middleton: "There's a lot we feel we can still do with our sound and the influences we have. We've got a few albums under our belts now, and there's still so much that we feel we can do within our sound, because we do have quite eclectic influences, and we only touch upon each of them at times. We just want to keep pushing ourselves to write as best music as possible. As always, the main aim really focusing on making really quality music. But other than that, just going to keep touring and just keep going, doing as much as we can, really. It's been a kind of slow and steady build up for us. We have not had any really overnight hype, but we see a rise in our fanbase always growing - in a very organic kind of way. We're just going to keep doing what we're doing. Nothing too crazy."