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Released on February 2, 2015 via Argonauta Records
Kayleth are a stoner rock band who formed in Verona ten years ago, now releasing their fourth album Space Muffin, their first for Argonauto Records.
Firstly, it’s nice to hear some music coming out of Italy: an Italian musician I interviewed recently described Italy as ‘desolate’ culturally. Not that you’d know Kayleth were from Italy as their sound is very much the traditional stoner confluence of the desert and the stars.
And so….”Space Muffin”?! It’s a terrible title. Space cake for the cafe culture age perhaps? Bite sized morsels to take with your Sweatleaf tea? Anyway, enough of this – let’s get to the music.
After a pretty decent intro we go into ‘Mountains’ – with writhing synths and chunky, restless riff like Soundgarden’s mixture of the widescreen and the weird. When it busts loose towards the end it morphs into pure Kyuss-apeing sun-blasted rock. I think it’s fair to say it lays down a clear marker as to what Kayleth are about, without ever stating a case for greatness.
Now ‘Secret Place’ has a nice roll to it, but utilises a riff and melody I must have heard half a dozen times on other stoner songs. However the closing guitar workout by Massimo Dalla Valle is a real headphones moment with some lovely subtle effects at play. A narrow victory.
‘Space Walk’ is a welcome stray from the norm, infused with a melancholy rarely heard in stoner with its here-and-now hedonism. It doesn’t live up to its sampled spoken word intro but does at least add some variety.
It’s not until ‘NGC2244’ that the band again turn out anything other than standard stoner fare: a retro futurist synth line by new recruit Michele Montanari and wild stratospheric guitar solo create a really vivid scene, heavy on the space rock, but individual enough to stand as musical highlight of the album.
The closing ‘Lies Of Mind’ kicks in like Sound of White Noise era Anthrax, bristling and edgy, but the song never really holds together well enough to harness the energy. It’s another of the moments where the music briefly flares into life, lights on the shore promising a brighter future, but for now Kayleth are stuck in very familiar territory and their cake is going stale.
