Kylesa – Spiral Shadow

• Country: United States
• Style: Sludge metal / Psychedelic rock
• Label: Season of Mist
• Release date: 25 October 2010

Two drummers can easily turn into mud. On Spiral Shadow they do not. Carl McGinley and Tyler Newberry are mixed so that the double kit adds width and swing instead of just volume, and that choice says a lot about how Phillip Cope approached the production. He recorded the band at The Jam Room in Columbia, South Carolina, and the sound is warm and roomy, with fuzz that never swallows the vocals.

The songs are shorter and tighter than the Savannah band’s reputation might suggest. Eleven tracks in about forty minutes, most of them around three and a half. “Tired Climb”, the first song the band made public and later the video, opens with a riff that is pure sludge but a chorus that leans towards nineties alternative rock. Laura Pleasants sings cleanly and with more confidence than before, and her trade-offs with Cope give the record its push and pull. “Don’t Look Back” is the best example.

The title track is allowed to stretch out, and it pays off with a slow psychedelic build. A couple of mid-album songs blur together, and the shift towards melody will not please everyone who loved the rawer early albums. But as a piece of production, this is a good lesson in how to make a heavy band sound big without making it sound polished.

Best tracks:

Tired Climb
Don’t Look Back
Spiral Shadow
Dust

Author’s rating: 8.4/10