Kylesa
Ultraviolet

THE REVIEW

Ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation not perceivable by human visual capacity. It exists, it's there, but we can't really grasp it. It's somewhat what happens in the latest release from Kylesa, a band always reluctant to be categorized into a specific genre. "Ultraviolet" is much more elusive than usual, because it doesn't align with the pattern of the previous works.

These four musicians from Georgia (Savannah) had accustomed us to ever-changing and mutable albums, but definitely fierce from an aggressiveness standpoint. Think of works like "Time Will Fuse Its Worth" and "Static Tensions." A specific artistic baggage that those who have come to know Kylesa inevitably carry with them. Precisely this past positions the new work under a new "light": more airy, more reflective but at the same time almost "less reasoned." The length of the pieces deceives those who believe they are facing the usual sludge hits where abrasive and dolomitic riffs chase each other. The Kylesa of "Ultraviolet" are sludge but also, and above all, something else.

The dear Laura Pleasants along with her three friends has once again created a dark, bony CD, difficult to understand despite its apparent simplicity. It must be said that over the years Kylesa has shown they can adapt to changes not always of considerable extent but still harbingers of stylistic variations that are well detectable in each of their works. "Ultraviolet" is a mixture of sludge, underground rock, of the most vulgar punk and unexpected and piercing psychedelic chants. Take the opener "Exhale", which is one of the more direct and linear tracks on the CD: Cope and Pleasants alternating behind the microphone, guitars distorted to the max, and then a sudden "space sludge" opening. Deep introspection also for "Unspoken", one of the most successful pieces of the batch with its subdued start ready to explode in a lava flow of gigantic proportions tempered only by a singing that is now less aggressive and infernal than one might expect. Similar features also for two other notable tracks such as "Long Gone" and "Steady Breakdown", where the weakening of vocal roughness is accompanied by disorienting atmospheres.

We are facing a different album, perhaps the most personal of the U.S. combo's career. A song like "Low Tide" would have hardly found a place in their past, with that sound echoing the most uncompromising Sonic Youth.

"Ultraviolet" is an interesting work from a reality that within its genre has managed to carve out an important niche. It's a step forward in the band's artistic maturation, an attempt to search for a personality contested multiple times in the past. The renewed taste for melody, the willingness to open up to a more accessible sludge without forgetting its roots, in the vocal lines that tend to harmonize with more "diluted" arrangements. All elements characterizing the new effort. It's as if Kylesa has suddenly decided to depressurize their way of making music to give more breathing room to a songwriting that was often entangled in itself, lacking the variations capable of giving more incisiveness to their proposal. A more easy approach? Catchy tendencies? Denying it would clash with reality, but Kylesa seems to manipulate this slight "change" with a certain dose of personality. The result is "Ultraviolet".

1. "Exhale" (3:02)
2. "Unspoken" (4:48)
3. "Grounded" (3:15)
4. "We're Taking This" (2:42)
5. "Long Gone" (3:27)
6. "What Does It Take" (2:05)
7. "Steady Breakdown" (4:49)
8. "Low Tide" (3:36)
9. "Vulture's Landing" (3:16)
10. "Quicksand" (2:35)
11. "Drifting" (5:26)