REVIEW: Flesh Prison – Flesh Prison [EP/2025]

Artist: Flesh Prison
Album: Flesh Prison – EP

Jokingly describing themselves as “that fuck you kind of heavy,” Canada’s latest—and among their heaviest—export Flesh Prison put a little more truth in that jest than one might think. Featuring members from another ten-ton Canadian outfit Falsifier, Flesh Prison are the latest among a growing list of bands showing marked reverence to Deathcore’s “glory days.”

So what makes Flesh Prison different?

The band’s debut effort is clearly the product of hard work and deliberate intent, carefully borrowing stylistic elements and influence from the mid-to-late 2000s deathcore soundscape and blending them with a sharpened, honed aesthetic that rivals many of the genre’s modern progenitors. Whether its the sharp-witted samples that snap moments before a maelstrom of chugs and thick kick drums, the lacerating vocals or relentless pummeling from a dynamic bass-guitar duo, Flesh Prison build a foundation from “revival” style deathcore and flesh it out into something much more impactful.

Flesh Prison is a short, sweltering EP that gives the listener precisely zero breaks or reprieve throughout its immolating duration. Skin-rending blast beats and pulverizing chugs work together like a woodchipper and meat tenderizer, flattening and shaving the listener down to dust. “No Peace,” the band’s lead single, is evidence alone of Flesh Prison’s ruthless ability to oscillate between mind-numbing speed and crushing, plodding brutality. Meanwhile, “Deathbed Messiah” is a lesson in unending, languishing aggression, where gargantuan riffs work in dialectic with low, dense bass to sonically oppress the listener without second thought. While one might argue there isn’t much “range” to Flesh Prison, I would argue that the band toggle between blitzing speed and boisterous, raunchy aggression—and that’s really all you need from a four-track deathcore EP.

Just as the band’s instrumental approach is colossal, speaking volumes for the band members’ collective experience and careful composition, their vocal element is just as finely crafted. Savage, shrill screams trade off with brazen bellows and visceral gutturals throughout the duration of the EP, excellently complementing the primal, driving attitude and intense nature of the instrumentation that underscores them. “I Am Consequence” is one slab of vocal excellence where intelligible lyrics ebb and flow into bewildering, chaotic low bellows that almost literally flick a fight-or-flight switch in the listener’s brain—where “No Peace” is an anthemic slab of deathcore excellence that balances vocal mastery and lyrical precision beautifully.

Flesh Prison get it right on the first try—something difficult to do in heavy music at all, let alone in a genre that is getting more and more attention from artists creating a cheap replay of late-2000s hit records. Flesh Prison defies this, creating something that wouldn’t have sounded out of place at the turn of last decade, while remaining visually intriguing and contemporary enough to draw in those newer to the genre. In short, the band’s debut EP is a prodigal success, and sets the bar high for releases to come.

9/10
For Fans Of: Tracheotomy, Restricted US, Katywentmissing, Whitechapel
By: Connor Welsh