ON KYLESA

My post about Kylesa the other day seemed to get a lot of folks riled up. Which is great, because this is MetalSucks and we love getting folks riled up!

But I realize that I made a mistake by including the word “hipster” in the headline, because at least half the commenters who defended Kylesa latched onto that word and used it to characterize my dislike of the band. While it so happens that a lot of folks who don’t listen to much metal do seem to like Kylesa (and that some people might call these folks “hipsters”), that’s not a reason for me not to like the band. I don’t like them because of the reasons I enumerated in the 5+ paragraphs that made up the body of the article. “Hipster” or non-hipster… I couldn’t give a fuck who Kylesa’s fans are. I don’t like ’em ’cause I don’t like ’em, and I spent a good amount of time formulating an argument based on the actual music. So if you disagree with me and you love Kylesa, great for you and please feel free to tell the world why, but kindly pay attention to the article that I wrote and the points therein instead of latching onto one word which, admittedly, probably isn’t even accurate.

That said — and I made a point to close the other article this way, which I’ll do again right here — I did see some artistic growth between Kylesa’s prior album and the most recent one, and I’ll still give the new one a shot when it comes out. But based on what I’ve seen and heard of this band up until now I have not enjoyed their music. And that’s that.

-VN