This Savannah, GA-based hard rock band has finally painted its masterpiece on this, its fifth full-length.
Kylesa
's use of two drummers (a practice that began on 2006's
Time Will Fuse Its Worth
) has really paid off on this disc, adding rhythmic intricacy without devolving into proggy abstraction or wallowing in
Melvins
-like thudding. The melodic aspect of their sound is what's changed the most on
Spiral Shadow
, though; the songs are more psychedelic than ever, with guitarist/vocalists
Phillip Cope
and
Laura Pleasants
shouting and crooning back and forth at each other in a call-and-response style that sometimes sounds like an argument, and other times like a ritual.
Pleasants
' dreamy crooning on
"Don't Look Back"
recalls '90s shoegaze, or
Kim Gordon
's work with
Sonic Youth
on albums like
Sister
EVOL
.
Cope
' guitar work is incantatory and powerful, rising to
Baroness
-like heights of glory on tracks like
"Tired Climb"
"Crowded Road."
Those titles reflect a feeling of physicality, of people making music through manual labor in a hot, crowded room, and that's how this album feels. The mix is somehow both spacious and full, with each instrument clearly audible at all times, yet making up one part of a majestic whole. This is a great psychedelic hard rock album, only occasionally returning to the sludgy metal of
's early releases. ~ Phil Freeman