The British mathcore band, PUPIL SLICER, released their second full-length album, "Blossom," on Prosthetic Records. I've only seen them listed under the "mathcore" umbrella in other places. Their sound is more progressive than that of most mathcore artists. I love their, "everything all at once," songwriting. They incorporate several disparate elements on this album, such as grindcore, shoegaze, and ambient electronic music. The album begins with "Glaring Dark Of Night," an ambient instrumental introduction that at first sounds inviting, but you later realize it's also more than a little bit unsettling. The next track is "Momentary Actuality." This one has a grindcore beginning that dips its toes in the deathcore pool as well. I enjoyed Davies' clean vocals on this track, especially when mixed with keyboards and blast beats. Those sounds overlap in an unexpected, yet intriguing way. PUPIL SLICER's innovative songwriting is their strongest suit when it comes to this album.

"The Song At Creation's End" starts in a post-rock direction, then quickly swerves back into metal territory. The best part of this track is the way that the clean and harsh vocals are used simultaneously. There's also a strong undercurrent of hardcore punk on "Blossom." This track has a part where everything gets shouty all at once and has plenty of hardcore urgency. The most striking detail of this track is that, after all of the aggression, it ends with a woman, presumably Davies, sobbing. The emotion is raw. My favorite track on "Blossom" is "No Temple." The song is still all over the map musically, but it works best in this case. It begins with harsh sounds that wouldn't be out of place on an industrial album. They also up the hardcore quotient, literally putting the "core" in mathcore. The track meanders through several different flavors of extreme music before ending on a jazzy note, preempting a bout of screaming.

The penultimate track, "Dim Morning Light," begins with clean guitars and progressively gets busier, creating a wall of sound that is as pleasant in its grandiosity. Again, Davies' vocal range is most impressive. Toward the track's end, the onslaught of the vocal layering tends to be overwhelming, but this isn't an album that I found easy to casually listen to. It's too stimulating and demanding. That's not a bad thing at all. "Blossom," the final track, starts with some catchy driving guitar riffs. The clean vocals sound like something out of the grunge era. The cleanly sung chorus pairs well with the more raw, harsher vocals in the verses. There's a part that sounds kind of "screamo" that I found disappointing. I listened to all of the screamo music that I will ever need during the early aughts. Overall, I enjoyed PUPIL SLICER's "Blossom" album. There are a few nitpicks here and there but it's a solid second effort. Mathcore is a subgenre that is all about the unexpected and this one threw me for a loop more than a couple of times.