Savannah, Georgia-based sludge metal band Kylesa are reuniting for their first live performances in nearly 10 years.
Kylesa revealed that they will be playing a series of shows in 2025 to mark the band’s 25th anniversary — the first coming in April at the Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands.
Shared the band’s core members Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants on X/Twitter:
“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.”
Kylesa announced that they were going on hiatus in April 2016 following an intense run of album cycles, the last being 2015’s Exhausting Fire. The band went through a multitude of members during its initial 15-year run, with Cope and Pleasants remaining the only constant members (though drummer Carl McGinley would remain a fixture after joining in 2006).
The band wrote at the time: “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.”
Along with Mastodon and Baroness, Kylesa were at the forefront of the Southern sludge metal scene that emerged out of Georgia in the late ’90s/early 2000s. The run of albums including 2006’s Time Will Fuse Its Worth, 2009’s Static Tensions, 2010’s Spiral Shadow is held in high regard by fans, charting the band’s shift from a post-hardcore/sludge style to a more heavy psych/stoner metal sound.
Those albums could be seeing reissues and re-releases — most of the band’s back catalog is now out of print — with Kylesa announcing in June that they had teamed with Mythos Management for “some uniquely cool projects for the future and on ways to preserve our past.”
Check out Kylesa’s latest social media post about Roadburn below.
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.
-Phillip & Laura. pic.twitter.com/iO4CDt9BEV
— kylesa (@kylesamusic) August 20, 2024