When it comes to combining genres together, metal bands need to have the mindset of an evil chemist; experimenting to find out which solvents will create the most mesmerizing explosion. Some great sub-genres of metal have resulted from the combination of musical genres both closely and distantly related to our metal umbrella. Inject NWOBHM with hardcore punk and you get the first extreme metal sub-genre: thrash metal. Marry a symphony with Satan and symphonic black metal will rear its head, and if you could lace the fury and abrasiveness of death metal with good old-fashioned Iron Maiden-esque melodies, you would have a huge explosion called melodic death metal. Unfortunately for Georgia’s Kylesa, combining mid-paced sludge metal with hardcore results in little more than a messy fizzle.

This is admittedly my first exposure to yet another band from Prosthetic who is heavily influenced by the detrimental hardcore characteristics of slow to mid-paced tempos, strained vocal yelling/screaming, and plodding, uninteresting song structures. Out of 10 tracks, there are 3 short, directionless ones: Intro, Intermission, and Outro, with Outrobeing the coolest of the three, with its extended drum solo. So out of 7 real songs what are we left with? Vocally, there are three different approaches (congruent to the three different vocalists within the band) that the band chooses to integrate with their downtuned, sludgy riffing style. The best of these is the throaty roar (as found at 1:39 of What Becomes An End). Also found is a more mid-ranged scream heard in Between Silence And Sound, and then a punkish yell that is sprinkled in almost all the songs. None of them get above the mid-paced, almost rock-like tempo, and as a result cannot withhold listeners for the duration of the album. As mentioned before, the riffs have a thick, resonating tone to them, helped by both a low tuning and a fuzzed out bass sound, which is one thing about this album I admired. It’s not that the riffs in themselves are uninteresting, but they are just too few of them to be repeated as often as they are (Between Silence and Sound).

Having said that, there is not much to speak of in terms of melodicism on this album, and that is definitely a deterrent. You can probably guess there won’t be many melodic motifs found in any of the band’s vocal styles, and because of that, the melodic hooks are left hanging soley upon the weight of the guitars, which ultimately fail to deliver. Relying more on heavy chugging and feedback-laden noisy riffs, every song just melds together as a large boring mass.

While the production on Time Will Fuse Its Worth is relatively clear and suits the music well, it still cannot help this record from rising above an average rating. If the band can infuse some smoother, yet more interesting song structures, they have the talent to make a much better record.

Note: Below is the video for "Hollow Server". In time, the video may become outdated and fail to play.