If you heard Static Tensions, then in all likelihood you’re already excited about the forthcoming Spiral Shadow, which is Kylesa‘s first album for new label home Season of Mist, which is due out Oct. 26. If you didn’t hear Static Tensions, well, there’s still time before the new one comes out, and no one has to be the wiser.

Kylesa is about to tour a month-plus with Torche and High on Fire. The PR wire has this:

Kylesa, the psych-rock co-ed Georgians, have revealed the cover art (illustrated by Santos) and track list for the anticipated new album Spiral Shadow.

The band, who recently wrapped up a European tour with Converge, recorded the new album at the Jam Room in Columbia, SC, earlier this summer with band member and renowned producer Phillip Cope (Baroness, Withered) once again at the helm. 

Upon Spiral Shadow‘s release (Oct. 26, Season of Mist), the album will have a limited edition digipak version with 3D cover art packaged with a bonus DVD.

Kylesa is currently working on a video for “Tired Climb” and will return to the road on Sept. 11 with a performance at Raleigh‘s Hopscotch Festival before joining High on Fire and Torche for a five-week US trek.

Spiral Shadow tracklist:
1. Tired Climb
2. Cheating Synergy
3. Drop Out
4. Crowded Road
5. Don’t Look Back
6. Distance Closing In
7. To Forget
8. Forsaken
9. Spiral Shadow
10. Back and Forth
11. Dust

While you and I are sitting on our lazy asses, ostensibly “remembering” the contributions of the veterans who’ve made our empire so very great and laid the foundations for the evil which our leaders have wrought, Savannah, Georgia‘s Kylesa will be in the studio, working hard on their new album. It’s going to be their first record for Season of Mist, and especially coming off the oh-so-badass Static Tensions, I’m stoked to hear what they come up with. Best of luck to the band. I’ll keep them in my thoughts while grilling and/or grabbing a beer from the cooler.

Sayeth the PR wire:

Between extensive tours of Europe, Kylesa will enter the studio on May 31 to begin recording the follow-up to the critically-acclaimed album Static Tensions. The new album is the band’s debut for Season of Mist Records. The sessions will take place over the month of June at the legendary Jam Room in Columbia, SC with Phillip Cope at the helm as producer. The band is very excited about the new material, with writing ongoing since January of this year. After the completion of the recording the band will return to Europe supporting Converge through August, with US touring plans to be announced shortly.

I’ve never experienced one myself, but I’d imagine summer in Savannah, Georgia, is about as hot as you get without actually lighting your face on fire. Nonetheless, Kylesa have bravely chosen to record their album starting in May and finishing in July — right about kerosene time, for anyone paying attention one sentence to the next. Good thing they’re headed north to do it… all the way to South Carolina. Much better.

Straight from the “Didn’t See This Coming” Dept. is the news that Kylesa has signed to Season of Mist, who seem to be making a play at the metal bigtime. Good for them, good for them too, and good for us all because we’ll get a new Kylesa record hopefully before the end of the year. If you missed out on last year’s Static Tensions, it did quite rule.

Says the wire of PR:

Kylesa, whose 2009 album Static Tensions was one of the most critically acclaimed metal albums of last year, has signed with Season of Mist with work already underway on the follow-up.

“We’re very happy to announce our new partnership with Season of Mist for the next Kylesa release, which we are hoping to get out later this year,” said the band. “We are stoked to be working with SOM on this next album. They are a forward-thinking label and they have all been very accommodating and a pleasure to work with.”

Regarding the new album, Kylesa adds, “The writing process for the new record has been intense, taking up the better part of each day since January (that’s why you haven’t heard from us lately), but in return we have some new material that we’re very proud of. The studio sessions at The Jam Room in Columbia start in May and end in early July; we’ll try to have a few reports for you along the way.”

The band is currently touring Europe until early May and will perform at the Roadburn festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands on Apr. 15. Check out the band’s MySpace page for more information on tour dates.

About half an hour after our interview yesterday, Kylesa guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants called me back and left a message on my answering machine (old school), asking me which riff in “Running Red,” the centerpiece track of her band’s new album, Static Tensions (Prosthetic), I was referring to in my review when I said the song was, “drawing a pagan circle around a riff that, if it was on a Hatebreed record, I?d probably call retarded.”

Slightly unnerved, because in earnest that’s my favorite song on the album and that riff — which first kicks in at 1:21 and makes a triumphant return at 3:52 — is a big part of the reason why, I rang her up and within a minute or so we were laughing, her acknowledging that she knew the riff in question was simple when she wrote it and I relieved that I hadn’t offended in my review. Her band of artsy sludge slingers recently back from a run in Japan with Birushanah and on the precipice of playing the unfortunately corporate Scion Rock Fest before heading out on yet another tour, this time of the Southern US, the last thing she needed was crap from the likes of me, sitting in my pajamas all day reviewing records.

Static Tensions is Kylesa‘s third album since 2005, fourth overall, and it boasts a fuller sound than anything the band has released before. Pleasants‘ vocal approach has diversified and matured notably since 2006’s the band’s last effort, Time Will Fuse its Worth. In the interview that follows the jump, the singer/guitarist offers her opinions as to how that became possible, what it was like working with guitarist/vocalist Phillip Cope as a producer for the second time, and why, after having two guitarists, two vocalists and two drummers — Carl McGinley and Eric Hernandez — finding another bassist to partner up with Javier Villegas just seemed like too much.

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Heavily-percussed — their two drummers might have something to do with that — Savannah, Georgia five-piece Kylesa will release Static Tensions, their fourth album (third for Prosthetic Records) on March 17. It’s an album that sees the avant sludge metallurgists concocting yet another highly individualized piece of post-metal, thicker and seemingly more focused on songcraft than 2006’s Time Will Fuse its Worth with heavy atmospherics built from aggressive riffs and savage performances.

As ever, with Kylesa, it’s a tale of sonic conflict. On Static Tensions, we hear guitarist/vocalist/producer Phillip Cope versus guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants, Cope and Pleasants then teaming up to take on drummer Carl McGinley and drummer Eric Hernandez, McGinley and Hernandez then turning on each other, the songs doing battle with themselves (and our eardrums) and the unavoidable maturation process and willful progression engaged mano a mano with the desire to bludgeon listeners over the head with heaviness. How bassist Javier Villegas manages to cope with it all is a mystery. Perhaps a lot of rocking out and the occasional bit of recreational drug use. Pure speculation.

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