Kylesa are a lot like the briefcase from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s stoner rock, but it’s a mix bag. You’ve got your downers dragging you deep into the sludge. You’ve got rich tapestries that dance in the psychedelic frequencies. You’ve got dual drums to throw your sense of rhythm into a spin. And, well, there’s nothing more depraved that a man in the midst of an ether binge.
A packed room upstairs at Café Campus was ready to dive in and take handfuls of whatever the band was willing to serve. Sometimes listed as anywhere from a 3 to a 5 piece centred around co-vocalist/guitarists Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants, 5 people took the stage.
The first thing to hit you is the dual drums, which hit much harder live than on record. They keep you baited for a dual drum solo, which eventually came at the end and didn’t disappoint. 3 minutes of pure double drum bliss, rock horns all around. Cope and Pleasants harmonies were haunting, while their riffs drove the whole thing home.
Fans hoping to get a taste of the upcoming Exhausting Fire were left disappointed, the band only played first single Shaping the Southern Sky, the rest of the setlist centering around stalwarts Spiral Shadow and Static Tensions. The rocking set definitely left a buzz over the crowd.
Before getting to co-headliners, Cult of Luna, let me state that I’m not a fan of doom metal. It can have some great ambiance and beautiful compositions, but the vocals never seem to deliver on the right feeling. It usually just leaves me longing for the days where being melancholic meant throwing on some Cure or thinking Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine spoke to you personally.
They came out powerfully. The lighting attempting to present the band as mere shadows dancing in the woebegone rhythm. The idea of a cult becomes apparent when you look out at all the heads nodding in unison. Sometimes you’ve sworn the crowd had been lured into a trance. It was a good mix of people who were really into it and Kylesa fans who weren’t quite sure what to make of it. The two groups were oddly difficult to tell apart.
You can tell there’s a high level of musicianship happening, these are some talented guys, but sometimes talent gets lost in itself. I feel like I wasn’t able to find the frame of mind to properly enjoy the band, which could very well be on me. There were certainly some fans leaving the venue high on what they’d just witnessed, but there seemed equally as many who left halfway through the set. Let’s chalk it up to an odd tour pairing and call it a night.
Review and photos – Richard Brunette
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