These days, especially for active bands, rarity compilations seem like fading vestiges of an antiquated industry. When most every gig seems to work its way onto YouTube, and when unreleased tracks act as fresh bait for legal downloads, one expects that most groups aren’t sitting on enough fully formed but unheard songs to necessitate such stopgaps. The internet demands its content like grist for the mill, so that quality often succumbs to quantity. An unearthed demo, an alternate take, or a discarded remix best left in obscurity can get a band back in the attention cycle, whether or not it's worth anyone's actual while. If you've got the tunes, why not put them to use?
That idea, or the negation of it, is one reason that From the Vaults-- a collection of 12 unreleased or rare tunes and teases, recorded by Southern metal bushwhackers Kylesa between 2005 and 2012-- seems so refreshing. Recorded in the studio of co-founder Phillip Cope, the dozen takes are every bit as crafted as those on Kylesa's increasingly excellent five studio albums, with tones both enormous and exploratory and vocals both large and enthusiastic. Many of these songs have been released before in some limited format, but nothing here sounds like it was readymade for an ephemera stockpile.
In fact, some of these numbers stand as inarguable highlights in an already-impressive catalogue: "Paranoid Tempo", for instance, churns through its two-and-a-half minutes of perfect pop-metal, Cope and Laura Pleasants trading lead vocals and textural harmonies like they're going to Halloween as Mates of State. Kylesa and Torche once got mentioned in the same Southern metal trend pieces, more as a result of geographic proximity than sound. Here, though, Kylesa one-ups the bubblegum tenacity of their Miami counterparts with twisted sonics pirouetting around an unfailing hook. Meanwhile, the lopsided structure and antiphonal clash of the guitars and howls during "Inverse" afford Kylesa a Godflesh-like urgency; but Kylesa's two-drummer configuration enables around-the-beat flourishes, rewiring the robot back into a righteous rock band.
Kylesa smartly handles this mix of material like an album, with the turgid lurk of the collection's one "new" track "End Truth" bisecting the blessed pop-metal of "Paranoid Tempo" and the hardcore-baiting rage of "Bottom Line II". Just as Kylesa have employed slow-building gambits, moody interludes, and closing instrumentals on their proper LPs, they open with a pensive full-band jam, insert a minute-long atmospheric recess, and end with a fairly incredible "Drum Jam" that variably suggests Steve Reich, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, and Dennis Chambers. Though the choice to sequester the set's only covers (a malevolent, marrow-scraping take on Buzzov-en's "Drained" and an ascendant version of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun") might seem like an obvious concession to typical odds-and-sods formats, the pair actually ends From the Vaults on notes both awesome and telling: Though Kylesa is rooted in the viscous Southern metal that Buzzov-en has made so aggressively for decades, they are fascinating because they've extended beyond those roots, adding psychedelic and industrial and pop influences to their music en masse. These covers trace that lineage, forming a progressive arrow that parallels the investigative nature of Kylesa's music. From the Vaults, then, provides context and content.
Kylesa has never been a casual band: During the last decade, they've survived the death of a member, multiple shifts in label alliances, and that moment a few years back when people romantically spoke about Savannah and the swampy South like the new Seattle. Despite it all, they've become the rare act that seems both tied to the sound of their geography and inherently interested in expanding it, too. Their commitment to those ends are epitomized by From the Vaults, a collection that shows a band that's spent the last seven years building a bulkhead of interesting music that extends beyond proper LPs. This set, after all, beneficently takes the subtitle Vol. 1, an appendage that can hopefully be interpreted not only as a sign that Kylesa continues to work on new material but also that similar scraps remain in the stable.
