[Photo by Geoff Johnson]
By Austin L. Ray
Quick: Name a state that’s more responsible for today’s finest metal than Georgia. Just try; although your answer’s gonna be wrong no matter what. Shall we count the reasons why? Mastodon. Harvey Milk. Baroness. Torche (in part). Zoroaster. Withered. The list goes on, but it wouldn’t be complete without Savannah’s Kylesa. Purveyors of one of 2009’s finest records, metal or otherwise–the monstrous Static Tensions–these four fellas (and one teeth-gnashing gal) have made quite a name for themselves over the past eight years.
Guitarist/vocalist Phillip Cope took a few moments away from the band’s relentless touring schedule–which passes through the indie-centric environs of Cake Shop (!) next Saturday–to dig into a few cuts for self-titled.
“Running Red”
[Guitarist/vocalist] Laura [Pleasants] wrote the main parts of this song and she definitely had a vision for it. She really likes covering Pink Floyd‘s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” and wanted to write a song that was similar in feel.
[audio:http://www.self-titledmag.com/wp-content/uploads/audio5/06%20Nature%27s%20Predators.mp3]
“Nature’s Predators”
One of the last songs written for the album. It almost ended up being pretty prog, but at the last minute, I decided I wanted to simplify it a bit. This was one of the more intense ones for me lyrically.
[audio:http://www.self-titledmag.com/wp-content/uploads/audio5/04%20Unknown%20Awareness.mp3]
“Unknown Awareness”
I am really stoked on how this song came out. It started as just an idea. We called it “The Bass Song,” because at the time of writing it, we didn’t have someone playing bass, so we just tried to leave parts open for the bass, and planned for the bass to start the song out. It was a trip seeing how well it worked when we had Javier [Villegas] actually play on it.
[audio:http://www.self-titledmag.com/wp-content/uploads/audio5/02%20Insomnia%20For%20Months.mp3]
“Insomnia for Months”
Our drummer Eric [Hernandez] wrote and played the music for this one. It almost didn’t make it. We only had about 20 minutes left on our last day of tracking live songs, and I went to him and apologized for not having enough time to do it. He looked really bummed, so I asked him jokingly if he could play every instrument and get it done within 20 minutes. He jumped out of his seat and played all the parts in 18 minutes. I was stunned and stoked. Laura and I wrote the lyrics and the title is about me having insomnia the whole time we recorded.
[audio:http://www.self-titledmag.com/wp-content/uploads/audio5/01%20Scapegoat.mp3]
“Scapegoat”
This song was written with the sole purpose of being an opening song. I originally wanted the structure to be somewhat like the structure on “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, but it just didn’t work for us. So we just came up with our own deal. Lyrically, this one is really intense, which is kind of weird because my original thought was I didn’t want to get too intense with my lyrics this time around. In the end, I don’t think Laura and I could hold back, which, in hindsight, is a very good thing.
