Kylesa
Exhausting Fire

Many had already sensed something fishy in the previous "Ultraviolet," while I considered and still consider it a valid, multifaceted album, "different" from the classic mood of the Savannah band. In a typical process of many bands, after working more or less along the same lines, they released work that tried to carve out a stylistic groove different from the typical Kylesa trademark. The same can be said for "Exhausting Fire," the band's latest chapter, released in 2015. We're talking about seasoned musicians who slowly found their place in the American underground scene from humble beginnings, eventually becoming a beloved name among sludge jungle enthusiasts. A forward leap to be appreciated. You certainly can't expect Kylesa to play their entire lives with the earth-shattering blasts of albums like "To Walk a Middle Course" or "Time Will Fuse Its Worth." Yet even I, who found the previous album quite interesting, felt for the first time bewildered and disappointed by the Pleasants' crew.

"Crusher" starts, and you immediately find yourself in the muddy terrain of an abrasive yet simultaneously alluring mantra-like psychedelia. Great track. Well done. Right after, there's a void with "Inward Debate" and "Moving Day," which are brief and leave essentially nothing behind. A very flat songwriting where the voices of Pleasants and Cope alternate. "Lost and Confused" starts well with an evocative intro that gives hope, but then it confirms all the shortcomings already surfaced: the piece works better than those before it, but everything feels more diluted, sweetened, sugar-coated, and above all, lacking those solutions that made "Ultraviolet" a diverse album capable of spanning without boring.

It's quicker to identify the tracks that work, and there are few. Fortunately, "Falling" comes to our aid with its nocturnal, urban-tinged psychedelia. Perhaps the highlight of the CD. "Blood Moon" finally manages to find different solutions, even reaching oriental-tinged sounds. For the rest, there's an underlying emptiness that can be well exemplified by "Night Drive," two voices chasing each other and an irritating flatness. Even boring.

Kylesa's multiple sounds have been partly dispersed. Even the hard riffs typical of sludge have almost completely disappeared in favor of a more "easy" approach: to be clear, we're not talking about catchy choruses and childish melodies, but to exaggerate, one could say that "Exhausting Fire" almost sounds like a pop album forced inside a sludge wrapper, further diluted and lacking the epic and multifaceted charge of past records. Kylesa are trying a different approach, evolving, and increasingly seem to leave behind the rocky territories of their sludge beginnings. The problem is that this latest work is mundane, perhaps the first real Kylesa album that has nothing to say. Where will they go in the future? For now, they've taken a break...