Kylesa - 'Static Tensions'

With increasing heaviness and experimentation, Kylesa have also crafted the most memorable album of their career.

If you’re cool enough, you’ve already taken off your Clark Kent styled glasses and stroked your bushy, unkempt beard while listening to the brilliance that is Kylesa. (It’s probably best to keep bias against said crowd in check because in all fairness, a band shouldn’t be measured based upon a certain segment of their audience.)

But seriously, whether or not you fit the mold of the current hipster aesthetic, the point is that Kylesa’s music is palatable to fans of various strands of heavy music. In terms of overall sound, their dirgy tuning and production is reminiscent of Endtyme era Cathedral with a touch of Kyuss. But interestingly, instead of their deep pool of influence leading to a sea overburdened with mind-numbing, nonsensical genre jumping, it’s been filtered through a rock music format that’s allowed Kylesa to hone their creations into non-pretentious, to-the-point and memorable songs.

Yet at the same time, their nebulous approach does occasionally hit upon some readily recognizable styles. Loose punk progressions steady the pace at times, with the dexterous performance of show-stealing drummer Eric Hernandez, and there are also augmentations of either fist-pumping, old school metal licks, pseudo-black metal drives or shimmering, psychedelic riffs that drift off into the ether.

With very little filler material, one of the only chinks in Static Tensions’ armor becomes all the more obvious. Considering the sheer power, constant excitement and high quality of the release, it’s curious why the band included the few passages with mediocre melodic vocals. Next go around they should really just be omitted, or a solid melodic vocalist should be drafted into the fold.

Arm-chair quarterback griping aside, Static Tensions is an early contender for being one of 2009’s best albums.