4 out of 5

Label: Season of Mist

Produced by: Phillip Cope

I kept falling into and out of love with Kylesa over the course of ‘Ultraviolet:’ I’d find a groove in their psychedelic sludge that’d grab me, and get caught up in Laura Pleasants’ shouts… only to be stymied by an abrupt ending, or the sudden inclusion of reverbed 80s guitars or somesuch. Or perhaps I’d be rocking out to something thrashier, Phillip Cope now hardcore-growling at me, and then the production would get all studio gimmickry on me, and muck up the works with effects, or tin-can recording of the percussion. It’s like the members of Kylesa were all about being getting in their own way, cluttering up or cutting short every good song or moment.

And then on Low Tide – ostensibly a pop song, heavily awash in reverb – I realized that I was getting in the way: I’d come ’round to Kylesa through a Deathwish single, which put me in the mind of metal, and opener Exhale on Ultraviolet did nothing to dispel that mindset, hitting hard and fast and yelly. Kylesa certainly is metal, but by the time of this release, 10+ years into their career, they were also a lot of other things, and instead of trying to box the band into a genre, I tried to just, y’know, listen.

Ultraviolet does still have some of the flaws I’ve highlighted: there are some wildly abrupt swings from loud to quiet via genre changeups that aren’t really effective, and rather just different; which is linked to the lack of conclusion of some songs – sometimes Kylesa just plays until their idea runs out of steam, and then they’re done; and the production / recordings sometimes seems like it’s trying to mask a lack of oomph by layering in the fuzz and bumping the low end. At the same time, once I allowed the album to play out on its own terms, there’s something incredibly charming about the structural gambles the group takes – imperfect, sometimes clumsy, but willing to go somewhere odd – and I ended up prefering to hear the production as unfussy, capturing a group building songs out in their garage and patching on interesting bits and bobs and not necessarily cleaning things up for the studio.

Very possibly these “compliments” are offensive, and deny the group more agency in affecting their sound; either way, the end result is a very organic beast, and I think the ability to float from accessible rock to pop to metal makes the harder moments hit more, and the pop stuff pretty cheeky. Lyrically sneaked in to the cookie cutter mantras are some powerful visuals; again, you can kind of prop up what initially feel like lesser moments on the stronger backbone – eventually, those mantras get fueled by the general ire and emotion behind the album, making it easier (and fun) to pump your fist and sing along.