Home – Kylesa – From The Vaults, Vol. 1 (Season of Mist)

– Kylesa – From The Vaults, Vol. 1 (Season of Mist)

Boxx Magazine | Kylesa – From The Vaults, Vol. 1 (Season of Mist)

Tuesday 01st October 2013,

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Kylesa – From The Vaults, Vol. 1 (Season of Mist)

Roxanna Bennett December 27, 2012

Overall Score

This twelve-song rarities collection from Savannah, Georgia’s sludge metal band Kylesa is targeted at rabid fans, featuring alternate and unreleased versions of songs, a couple of covers and one new track. If you’re not familiar with Kylesa’s catalog, From the Vaults is probably not the best starting point. If you’re already a fan, though, this release may give you some insight into the band’s influences, points of departure and moments of playfulness. 

“Intro” offers no hint of what songs follow and sounds more like a snippet than a song. “Bass Salts” and “Drum Jam” are not so much songs as solos. “Bass Salts” in particular is punishingly dull but fortunately short. “Drum Jam” is the dueling banjos of percussion.

Kylesa’s cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” is unadorned of the flourishes and subtleties of the original, taking the base melody and dragging it through mud.

Tracks like “Paranoid Tempo,” a chugging upbeat hardcore song, and the groove metal riffing of “Wavering” are fully-realized, decent songs. Other tracks give the listener an idea of what Kylesa is capable of, but seem more like failed lab experiments then ready-for-market drugs.

Kylesa offers unique variants of the typical sludge metal lineup with multiple vocalists and a pair of drummers. However these components are not necessarily deployed with complete success. When vocalists Laura Pleasants and Philip Cope are simultaneously screaming, the results are less interesting than when they explore their ranges such as in “End Truth” and the middle section of “Wavering.” Two drummers add more force to the bottom end but this probably translates better live than on recording.