KYLESA To Return To Live Stage After Nearly A Decade

KYLESA, one of the pioneers of the Savannah, Georgia Southern sludge/psychedelic, rock/metal sound and vibe, will reform for several live appearances in 2025 celebrating its 25 years as a band. The first announced concert will take place at the Roadburn festival in April 2025 in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

KYLESA said: "After 10 years away we are excited to return to performing live: starting at Roadburn 2025. We're playing a few special shows next year celebrating 25 years as a band & it all starts in Tilburg. We have so much more to tell you about over the coming months."

In April 2016, KYLESA, which is led by guitarists/vocalists Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants, announced that it was going on indefinite hiatus. The band broke the news to fans in a social media post, writing: "After 15 years of nonstop touring and writing, we decided that it is time for a break. A lot of you have been asking when we are coming to your part of the world and that means a lot to us. However, we feel it should be known that as of now we have no plans to play any shows or work on any new material. We have collectively decided to take a hiatus with no set date to reconvene."

In June, KYLESA revealed that it had teamed with Mythos Management and was working on "some uniquely cool projects for the future and on ways to preserve our past — excited to share more on it moving forward."

In the decade since KYLESA stopped performing live, Philip reunited DAMAD, Laura launched a new band called THE DISCUSSION and they contributed to various other projects. Earlier this year, Laura lent her voice to SLOWER, the stoner/sludge/doom metal tribute to SLAYER.

KYLESA's seventh album, "Exhausting Fire", was released in October 2015 via Season Of Mist. On the LP, KYLESA further explored and incorporated psychedelic rock, new wave, space-age twangy Americana, '80s goth and death rock into its pitch-thick DIY punk/metal roots.

Philip described "Exhausting Fire" as "an album we really put our hearts on our sleeves for. We've always done that, but emotionally, it's probably the most honest and raw album we’ve ever done."

"No band sounds like us and we don't sound like any other band", Laura said. "After all these years of experimenting with different styles and sounds, we've really developed our own thing and I can faithfully say that we sound like us. With this album, we've successfully made a record that incorporates all the elements we've always played with into a record that works on its own."

KYLESA's live show saw them perform as a five-piece, including a second drummer.

KYLESA 2015 press photo courtesy of Season Of Mist