Review Summary: Kylesa are going to take you to a world they crafted themselves, one filled with vast emotions and psychedelic delusions
Kylesa are a sludge metal band from Savannah, Georgia that plays a unique brand of sludge metal mixed with elements of psychedelic rock and some stoner rock thrown in as well. Their third studio album, Time Will Fuse Its Worth, features a unique mix of emotions and sounds accentuated by the fact that the band contains three singers and two drummers. Alluding to their name, taken from the Buddhist phrase kilesa mara denoting delusory mental states, Time Will Fuse Its Worth mixes the uniqueness factor of so many singers/drummers to create an eccentric album that serves to be one of sludge metal's best.
The album's opener, "Intro," immediately shows the band's psychedelic side with a tribal drum beat, a scream in the background, as well as distorted sounds. The song flows into "What Becomes an End," which also immediately shows the band's trademark vocals. The two singers combine to make a unique dissonance, and accompanied by the sludgy heaviness of the down tuned guitars, serves to give the song and the album a crushing weight to it. That weight is only heightened when the lower roar comes in from Corey Barhorst to add further intensity to the sound.
What Kylesa also do remarkably well is build upon layers. The majority of the songs on Time Will Fuse Its Worth continually build upon each other that eventually crescendos into grandiose moments. Take "What Becomes an End," the song features a sludgy slow part midway into the song, before a weird guitar distortion build upon the drum beat almost serving as a solo, before being taken over by a melodic solo by another guitar. Then it all collapses into a slow passage once again. That's not to say the songs become formulaic, but that they have an impeccable ability to build up to these immense walls of sound before falling down and restarting. "Hollow Severer" does this as well, building up before moving back down into a slower groove, where one guitar alternates between three strings while a more ambient solo takes over.
In regards to ambience and sound; Kylesa truly do stand out here. As stated previously with "What Becomes an End" and "Hollow Severer," most of Kylesa's songs builds up before falling down again. What continually makes this interesting is the distortion and psychedelic influences Kylesa use during these collapses. Following the grandiose ending of "Hollow Severer," is "Where the Horizon Unfolds." The song begins with an ambient passage as guitar chords and slow drum beats build up into the core of the song. "Between Silence and Sound" is also an excellent example of this. Beginning with a haunting intro, the song continually escalates with simple guitar notes, climbing drum beats, and whispers before exploding into full sludge metal glory. Then it slides back down into the stoner rock sound before rising again. All this serves to elicit a slew of emotions as the song continually plods along.
As far as sludge metal goes, this is a true jewel. Sludge metal arguably already has numerous influences from the stoner rock/metal scene, but it's Kylesa's true effectiveness with using it, even all the way up to its "Outro," that showcases the band's true talent. The dropped down guitars and distortions serve to enhance this effect, and the dual drumming helps create a diverse and unique rhythm section. Along with the triple vocalist approach, Kylesa manage to craft an album with a dynamic sound that ultimately satisfies any fan of sludge metal, or even metal in general, while also leaving the listener with a wide range of emotions to ponder even after the album closes.
