Band:	Kylesa
Album:	Exhausting Fire
Style:	Sludge metal
Release date:	October 02, 2015
A review by:	BitterCOld

01. Crusher
02. Inward Debate
03. Moving Day
04. Lost And Confused
05. Shaping The Southern Sky
06. Falling
07. Night Drive
08. Blood Moon
09. Growing Roots
10. Out Of My Mind
11. Paranoid [Black Sabbath cover]

Kylesa seems to have pretty much abandoned their early intensity for a more "fly casual" approach here that is pretty light on the metal. While Spiral Shadow mellowed some from prior efforts and launched their new direction, there was enough of a marriage between visceral and trippy that it remains my favorite. No longer. This is much closer to some psychedelic rock with some sludge-y riffs occasionally tossed in. Frankly Exhausting Fire sounds a lot like the band are, well, exhausted.

Exhausting Fire is to Sludge as Near Beer is to, oh, Beer.

In and of itself this isn't an inherently bad thing unless you are a metal and metal-only fan.

I rather enjoy "rock" with a psychedelic or trippy edge to it, in general, so while the lack of \m/ was a tad disappointing, it didn't immediately ruin the album for me.

The biggest problem, imbo, is not the genre-shifting or playing Diet Sludge, but just that some of the tracks - enough to leave a lingering impact on the album as a whole - just feel boring and listless.

You'll get an immediate feel for what to expect with the opening track. Named "Crusher", this being Kylesa, you might expect a proper boot to the face to kick the album off before you'd expect things to settled down given their shift over the two prior records. Instead it fell flat right out of the gate.

The next couple tracks feature fuzzed out mellow buzz time with some sludge riffs. But these aren't like assume metal position, axe in hand, standing in front of a Marshall stack riffs, rather kicking back on the couch, feet up, after a few beers and strumming away riffs. Riffs, but not to harsh yer buzz.

"Shaping The Southern Sky" comes rawking in, easily the best and most energetic track on the album to shake off some doldrums before the album, again, slows down with several chill tracks in a row before the last two, "Growing Roots" and "Out Of My Mind" inject a little more energy.

I guess my issues were less with the artistic shift, but with the integration of it.

The album might have been less, oh, exhausting, if it were MORE exhausting. I think it might have benefitted from at least one or two more tracks akin to "Shaping The Southern Sky" to inject a little more energy - or at least give the more sludgy riffs some added OOMPH to them. Something to make people windmill/headbang/mosh/jump around or whatever it is they do, then enjoy a nice breather with the slower pieces.

The slower pieces themselves were the biggest problem as several of them - whereas I rather enjoyed "Falling", perhaps particularly on the back of "Shaping?", "Moving Day", "Night Drive" and "Blood Moon" did very little for me and most of the songs that comprise the remainder of the album were basically 50/50 in drawing me in at times and leaving me rather Ambien? err ambivalent at others.

And I'm not saying this as a reviewer in Metal Stance wanting to raise hell, rock balls, and wake the neighbors. I'm saying this as a guy, kicking back on the couch, on Benadryl and three drams of Lagavulin, around midnight on a Sunday. Pretty much precisely the time and place where the new approach should click most.

In closing, Exhausting Fire feels like a release by a band that is a bit tired. Not just in the aforementioned riffing and song construction, but even in lyrical theme and content. It's not bad, but it is neither as intriguing nor energetic as past releases.

(Yeah, I'm a jerk, and will use Spiral Shadow as the measuring stick.)