REVIEW: Flesh Planet - // first flesh

If you’ve got a hole in your life that’s the shape of a trippy, rock-EDM album where each vivid song tells its own story, then FLESH PLANET are here to fill the gap with their debut EP // first flesh, releasing 27th March. Reborn from the ashes of their previous project ALLUSINLOVE/ALLUSONDRUGS, the Yorkshire quartet have already been making fresh waves with FLESH PLANET, supporting VUKOVI on their 2026 tour and organising hometown headline shows, before hunkering down in the studio to combine every electronic and rock subgenre under the sun, to create an EP that snaps from Tarantino cinematic journeys to plunging into psychedelic cyberpunk.

Treading carefully after the industry watered down their sound and spirit on their previous project, FLESH PLANET have come a long way as musicians and friends since then and are ready to express their true sound and energy, refusing to be contained. Guitarist and producer Drey Pavlovic was candid about their reformation: “Once we finally got things moving again there was this immediate shared excitement…kinda like we’d all been quietly waiting for the same moment.”

Quietly waiting they may have been, but // first flesh is anything but. From opening track Computer Games & Rude Tracks introducing itself with guttural moans and screams before unleashing a grunge/electronic wall of sound, it’s telling you to expect the unexpected on every track. Jemal Beau Malki goes off the fucking chain with intense bass riffs through Big Machine, while Connor Fisher-Atack hammers the drums like his life depends on it throughout the entire EP, only slowing down marginally for brief interludes on the Evelyn verses, before powering up again for the chorus.

Pavlovic is a prevalent force in each song, alternating between otherworldly riffs that feel like a dangerous musical rip tide in Prototype, to soaring solos and bridges heard in Birdcage. Vocalist, lyricist, guitarist, and synths Damian Hughes has truly made his mark with cutting callouts of socio-political issues in Absorbed, emotional catharsis examining the struggles of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world in boisterous Pull The Wire, and the disillusionment that comes from society and the industry trying to put people in boxes in Colonise and Maximise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8hW-PyvPeE

// first flesh feels like being put in a headlock and dragged into the pit and suddenly finding yourself as a laser show; it’s eclectic, combines multiple genres and moods, and there’s a song for everyone to feel like they’re either on a trip or in a cyberpunk movie. FLESH PLANET are showing exactly who they are this time and how they’ve progressed as artists for a distinct sound. Be prepared to go on a journey where you don’t know the final destination, but you’ll enjoyably question everything along the way.

Score: 6/10

// first flesh will be self-released on 27th March 2026.

Words: Julia Stark

Photos: Amy Shephard