With the latest release by Savannah, Georgia-based sludge metallers Kylesa, titled Static Tensions, I think Prosthetic Records have made a major medical breakthrough and found the cure for insomnia.  One listen to this effort and I literally fell asleep midway through the effort, snoring and drooling contentedly, not once waking until the album concluded.

Kylesa follow in the footsteps of fellow boredom inducing Georgia metallers Mastodon, playing psychedelic-flavored sludge “doom” filled with “rockin” melodies, distorted vocals, fuzzy guitar tones and a thick bass sound.  There are some aggressive segments of a few songs that almost fools you into believing these guys are a sludge doom band, but with all of the psychedelic elements it just comes across as shitty stoner sludge rock for the most part.

An interesting aspect about Kylesa is the fact they have two drummers.  The only reason this is interesting is because other than a few seconds spread out throughout the album’s 40+ minutes you’d never even guess or notice that the band has more than one drummer.  Seriously, what the fuck is the point of having two drummers if they play the exact same patterns and beats throughout 39 minutes of the album’s 40 minutes?  It’s not like it adds anything noticeable to the music, you wouldn’t even be able to tell they had two drummers without looking up the band bio.  They’d be better off just getting one of these fucking retards to stand around banging on a cowbell, rather than wasting the stage and studio space on two drum sets.

The riffing on this album is easily the most boring shit ever recorded.  The droning and repetitive psychedelic rock riffs get old 30 seconds into the album but continue for another 39 and a half minutes.  The only brief glimpses of hope are the very rare moments when the band stick to playing traditional heavy doom sludge, but these moments are few and far between and interrupted quickly by some “groovy” melodies.

The vocals are among the shittiest I’ve heard in a long time.  For whatever reason the band employ studio trickery to distort the vocals and give them that fading yell sound that’s been done to death over the years.  The only time the stupid fading vocals aren’t used is when female guitarist Laura Pleasants does the near spoken drone vocals, and occasional backing yell.

After listening to Kylesa’s Static Tensions enough to slip into a boredom induced coma, I can honestly say this band fucking sucks, and this style of droning psychedelic stoner sludge doom is easily the worst thing to happen to metal since the invention of metalcore.  My only hope is, while on tour, Kylesa’s van gets a leak in the exhaust that causes the vehicle’s interior to fill with deadly carbon monoxide, causing the driver to lose consciousness and swerve and crash into Mastodon’s tour bus, killing them all and putting an end to this horrible style of music.  Hopefully Minsk and Genghis Tron will be passengers in both buses.  The only way this could end any better would be if both buses crashed into a crowd of their fans, thereby instantly raising the overall quality of the world’s taste in music.  Fuck this band and fuck you for liking this and encouraging more shitty bands like this to exist.  If you want good sludge metal, listen to Clitorture, Weedeater, The Abominable Iron Sloth or Goatsblood.  FUCK GEORGIA “METAL!”

Review byTeufel