Favorite Records of 2013 - Number 2

Ultraviolet by Kylesa was an album I gushed about earlier this year. They are a Georgia band that has grown past the wall of noise that made up their earlier records. This builds upon their previous record to show a continued progression, not to the mainstream mind you, but a progression to more interesting and rewarding paths. Stoner metal and sludge metal is good, but when a band can use that as a foundation instead of a ceiling, those are the bands that are on to something.

Here is not a record for everyone. It's hard and it's heavy and it's trippy and it's spacey and it hits like a punch to the face. It takes a progressive track. The driving forces behind the band are Laura Pleasants and Phillip Cope. Their trading of vocal duties be it from song-to-song or within the same song keeps a close listener on his feet. Whether they are singing or shouting it remains mesmerizing with the heavy yet melodic music. "Unspoken" channels Megadeth-esque guitar runs with chanting vocals underlaying the main vocal line. It is a record with bottom in the guitars. I love the tone. It's heavy but it grips you not just through power and explosiveness but through strong song-writing. Good metal has good riffs and Kylesa has them by the bushelful. The swirling opening of "Grounded." The chugging Sabbath-esque riff powering "We're Taking This."

Another positive. It is short. At just under 39 minutes it starts, beats your ass, then gets out. I do not subscribe to the more-is-better school. My favorite records are those that do not fuck around. That say what they are going to say and be done with it. It is not brevity for the sake of it but it is knowing when the point is made. That's refreshing.

It astounds me that this record is failing to show up on so many best-of-metal lists. It is number two for me. I find it impossible to fathom there are 25 better metal records than this.

There was ONE record I found better than this one....what will it be!?!

Mid Year Report

Since everybody else seems to be doing it, here's my Top 5 records of the year. It's entirely possible one  or two or all of these will fall off the Top 10 of the year (that happened last year with The Shins) but I doubt it! These records are all really good!! Some hard and heavy stuff...some mellow stuff.

The Eldritch Dark by Blood Ceremony - What happens when Black Sabbath meets Jethro Tull? You get Blood Ceremony. Though front-lady Alia O'Brien is far cuter than either Ozzy or Ian Anderson. I've been drooling over this record on Spotify for a while...the vinyl is supposed to be coming soon, so I will write about it when it shows up. They are from Canada, which is apropos of nothing.

Ultraviolet by Kylesa - This is s good as modern metal gets. Smart, well-written, not super-fast so it keeps a great groove. Kylesa know how to get it mellow before breaking into a sonic tidal wave. Read more here and here (Blood Ceremony here to!)

The Stand-In by Caitlin Rose - And now for something completely different. Sensational country-esque singer-songwriter. I say country-esque because "modern" country is equated with junk like Taylor Swift. This is the real deal. More here.

Impossible Truth by William Tyler - Brilliant record I wrote about here. Guitar instrumentals can get dull in a hurry; this doesn't get dull at all, it's mesmerizing. It's not the kind of record you dance to (I guess you can but it'd be kind of weird) but even though it's wordless it's the kind of record you still pay attention to.

Elephant Stone by Elephant Stone - More Canadians. Psychedelic prog-pop with 12-strings and sitars. Very classic era 90s sounding band. I need to listen to this record more. Wrote about seeing them live here.

There you go. Like I said, I can't really see these records falling off the list. Especially the Blood Ceremony one. If one of them does (or two or three) then that will be great because that means more killer records came out. I expect the new Blackfield will be on my list, that comes out September-ish. Alcest and Anathema are both working on new records. Records I have now that could make the list? Destroy This Place, Arbouretum, Kadaver maybe. It will be fun to find out!!

Metal Show Musings...Part 2

So after a rocking trip to the Rock n Roll Hotel Saturday night, I was back at it Wednesday, this time to see Kylesa supported by Blood Ceremony, White Hills and Lazur/Wulf.

Quick thing about the RnR Hotel: every show I have been to there (which is now four) I have been less than impressed with the sound. All the shows have been on the loud side, but the vocals are always way down in the mix. So while I like the location, the beer list, the rooftop bar, and the general sight lines making it a great place to SEE a show it's not a great place to HEAR the show. Let me know if you think otherwise. I first thought it was just where I was: for Lazer/Wulf and White Hills I stayed to the stage right side. Especially for White Hills, where I was in front of the bass, I could barely hear the guitar. When I moved center stage right in front for Blood Ceremony and Kylesa it was still fairly muddy. Maybe that's just how the bands are but it just doesn't sound right to me.

Lightning not too good but that's Lazur/Wulf in there

Ah well, what about the bands, man!! First up was Lazur/Wulf. I admit I was late for these guys so I only caught their last two songs. I listened to their latest record The Void That Isn't on Spotify and thought it was pretty cool. They are a three-piece and they are in the experimental zone of the metal spectrum. Their show was also pretty cool. Mainly instrumentals with occasional vocals. I liked them OK but wasn't broken up about missing most of their set.

White Hills...SMOKE!

Next up was White Hills. They are a spacey kind of metal thing. I listened to their 2012 record Frying On The Rock and was not terribly impressed. It had a lot of weird stuff going on, a lot of stuff that sounded like filler. When they took the stage though I was pleasantly surprised. First, the bass player is a good-looking blonde. Every band should have a good looking blonde bass player. Including mine. And they had a smoke machine, which I loved and want my band to get. The music was MUCH better live than the one record I heard. They only did four songs so they were on the longish side but they got into some seriously good grooves. I was moving along with it and enjoyed it immensely. I should have bought the live vinyl they had available because I listened to it today on Spotify and liked it a lot. They are coming back in August with The Cult, so a trip to Silver Spring may be in my future.

The next band, Blood Ceremony, I was VERY excited to see. I listened to their new record, The Eldritch Dark, and just fell in love with it. It's out on CD but I want the vinyl, but it's still just pre-orders till later this month. Nor did they have any at the show to buy. Curses!! I did get their t-shirt, buying it directly from a guy who I later observed was the bassist. That would explain why he seemed very pleased to sell me their t-shirt. NICE! They are from Canada and sound like Black Sabbath doing Jethro Tull. But with a super-hot-kind-of-witchy woman singing, playing keyboards that sound like an organ, and playing the flute (hence the obligatory Tull reference).  Their songs are just awesome, a great mix of mellow meets heavy. They sing about witches and sorcery and summoning devils and imps but it's all in good fun. Their set seemed to fly by but I recognized much of the stuff from the new record. Once the vinyl shows up I'll go deeper into the music, just trust me they were outstanding and I will see them again if I can. Sweet!

Blood Ceremony...more bad lighting

Finally, the headline, Georgia's Kylesa. I've already covered how I love their new record Ultraviolet. The show did not disappoint. Heavy and head banging mixed with groove oriented swagger. They have two drummers, which is a bit much to me but hey whatever, bass (duh) a guy guitarist and a girl guitarist who reminds me of a friend of mine but with significantly more tattoos (see the extra pictures below).

Kylesa...they brought it!

A few observations. They have a shit load of pedals. As you can see, guy-guitarist (Phil I think it is) has not just a keyboard in front of him but some sort of weird theremin as well as a skateboard rigged into a stringed instrument which with an assortment of effects pedals he made all kinds of batshitcrazy sounds. Girl-guitarist (Laura I think it is) had even more pedals and did the leads. I liked her light green Chucks...I liked her playing better. Real good guitarist, not flashy or showoff-y but right in the vibe of the music. You don't have to shred all the time in metal (which they can certainly do) to kill it. For me, it's all about groove. And in the fast numbers I banged my head harder than I have in years...probably not since I saw Iron Maiden the first time in 1990...wow that's a long time ago. Laura is the better singer between her and Phil; she sings while Phil just sort of yells. That's fine it works I like it. Also, the bass player does not have two heads, as the picture above suggests; I had to use panorama-mode because I was right the frak in front and the nerve of that guy moving around during my picture taking.

So...killer show, all four acts were great but especially BC and Kylesa. Two t-shirts procured (guess who) but no vinyl (doh!). Very pleased and worth my still ringing ears!

Here's some more pictures since I was nice and close.

White Hills dude

White Hills lady...see what I mean?

Blood Ceremony guitarist with a SWEET looking Yamaha

Dude I bought the BC shirt from

Witchy woman

Alia something or other from Blood Ceremony

Kylesa Phil's effects

Kylesa Laura's pedals

Kylesa bass dude

Kylesa groove

Laura and tats and sweet Les Paul

Crazy sound time!

Set list

Kylesa's Ultraviolet is Ultra-awesome

Something must be in the water down in Georgia because they are cooking up some seriously good metal. My nephew Scott got me into Mastodon a few years ago; Baroness' Yellow & Green made my top 5 favorite metal records of the year in 2012. Now Savannah's Kylesa enters my radar like a cruise missile with Ultraviolet. This record will easily make my top 10 favorites of the year and has a very good chance at being number one.

There's many things to like about this record. It is a loud aggressive record that also balances in a great melodic sense. It's not sing along, but it has a great metal groove to it. The vocals like most metal records these day is buried in the mix, which is a slight shame because co-vocalist Laura Pleasants has a great voice for the songs. I like this trend of women showing up in metal bands. Or maybe I am just getting around to appreciating it. But I don't remember bands like Kylesa or other great bands like Christian Mistress, Blood Ceremony and even Black Mountain which use female vocalists to great effect. Ms Pleasants shares vocal duties with Phillip Cope; they bring a nice counter to one another. There's not just the requisite metal screaming but strong singing as well. For me good grooves and good singing are what propels a metal band ahead.

The sound is forward-thinking metal. It's heavy, it has elements of Slayer-ish thrash, and Sleep-esque stoner, but it's modern. Steven Hyden had a great piece in Grantland in which he began talking about the new Queens of the Stoneage record before talking about Ultraviolet and the new Deafheaven and their place amongst the new metal scene (obviously a far greater and insightful piece than my drivel). His most interesting statement is that metal is the last bastion where forward-thinking rock music is being made. I couldn't agree more. That isn't a knock on the more mellow stuff or the garage rock I listen to but testament to the chances metal bands are taking and the challenges they are meeting. Black Sabbath is used as a touch point so often and it doesn't really mean anything. Sabbath were great and their influence on metal is so ingrained that it isn't even worth mentioning anymore. Any band can tune down and play a bit slower and be called Sabbath-esque. On the other hand any band that plays super fast will immediately be compared to Slayer. Hell, I already did it at the start of this paragraph. But the interesting thing about Kylesa is they are building on that foundation instead of just laying out. This album rocks in getting to a good cruising groove, then drops a gear to kick you in the ass again. A percussionist will find a lot to like; it's very drum-oriented and Carl McGinley is a great drummer. Drums are the engine of the band and Kylesa is able to rev very nicely. My only complaint is the production is a touch muddled, but that's the way metal seems to be going these days. I think a clearer production would have been good here.

All the songs are strong, but especially choice cuts include "Long Gone," "Unspoken," "Vulture's Landing" and the fantasticly groovy "Steady Breakdown." Not just a great metal record but a great record period.

Here's "Unspoken."