“The world is a pretty hateful place at the moment. I think we need to come together and I feel like our music is my way of expressing my rage and desire for a better world,” reflects Kate Davies—vocalist and guitarist for genre-defying three-piece, Pupil Slicer—on the divisive climate that the band was born into.
Formed just as the UK was about to descend into protracted trauma, having narrowly voted to leave the EU (a process very far from the simple uncoupling certain politicians had blithely promised), the band’s formative years have played out to a backdrop of this national division, COVID, and increasingly antagonistic identity politics. Little wonder the music of Pupil Slicer is so vitriolic—the band tearing relentlessly into their blend of grindcore, hardcore, and industrial music on their suitably incendiary new record, Fleshwork, out now on Prosthetic Records.
“On the album I have the lyric ‘The truth is dead, and its bones are but dust, a corpse long forgotten in a world made of rust.’ I think that this really sums up the state of things at the moment,” Davies notes. “We live in a world of nothing but echo chambers of misinformation with a massive rise in right wing fascistic propaganda on all fronts.”
All this considered, it’s heartening that Davies sees a positive, unifying message to the band’s music, at a time when anyone could so easily slip into nihilism.
“I really want to break through those layers of misinformation,” they continue, “to get to the core of humanity and show that we’re all just people sharing this earth together.”
While battering, propulsive rhythms and raging riffing are a key feature of the band and the latest record there’s no lack of sonic and emotional variety and depth to be found. For the strong industrial elements of Fleshwork, there’s a key organic, human dimension—something Davies was keen to accentuate with the help of producer Joe Clayton.
“I really enjoy including more harsh, industrial sound design elements in our music, but I definitely went into this project wanting a less polished and more unhinged sound,” Davies remarks. “We tried to make everything sound like there was a band right in front of you. Juxtaposing that with the more electronic elements ends up creating quite an interesting sonic landscape.”
The melodic variety that the band incorporates into tracks like “Nomad,” with emotive, melodic passages offsetting the industrialised sonic assault accentuate the emotional range of the record.
“Fleshwork encapsulates rage, sorrow, frustration, grief, shock and a lot more adjacent to each of those feelings,” says Davies. “We try to keep the sound varied and to continue surprising the listener as we want to keep pushing our boundaries as artists and seeing ourselves develop.”
Since the band’s previous album (2023’s Blossom) there have also been internal changes, with previous bass player Luke Fabian departing the band, to be replaced by bassist and backing vocalist Luke Booth.
This change in band dynamics has done nothing to derail their momentum, Davies noting, “Luke [Booth]’s been an amazing addition to the band and slotted in perfectly. The writing process for this record was really smooth, and we spent a lot of time refining the tracks down to be the best they possibly could be.”
As well as being a mirror to the world around them, the songwriting of Pupil Slicer has also taken inspiration from fiction—whether video games, movies or the conceptual offerings of bands like Nine Inch Nails. For Fleshwork the trend continues.
“We’ve always included a lot of nods to our favourite things in our music,” notes Davies. “There’s influence from Silent Hill 3, NieR, Final Fantasy, Chainsaw Man, Mouthwashing and The Matrix, all of which share thematic elements of manipulation, self-destruction and obfuscation of the truth.”
“Those are the biggest thematic vibes for the album which deals with the human element of the machinery that makes up the way the world operates and continues to perpetuate cruelty to others.”
Following the release of the album in early November, the band’s already primed for a number of shows around the UK and relishing the opportunity to see how the music of Fleshwork evolves on stage.
“It’s always a joy to get to bring the songs to life on stage and the tracks really come alive in that evolution,” says Davies. “Some of the Fleshwork tracks are already starting to adapt to that setting from their album counterparts and it’s really fun to see how that happens, you can never predict it!”
Fleshwork is out now, and you can order it from Prosthetic Records. Follow Pupil Slicer on Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky for future updates.
Photo Credit: Derek Bremner
