KAYLETH are storytellers. Their stories involve spaceships, alien beings, and the most abhorrent monsters of all, humans. Hailing from Verona, Italy, these maestros of Stoner Metal have been setting their tales to the dulcet melodies of the Desert since 2005. With a small pile of demos, one EP, one split, and, as of May 2024, four full-length studio albums, KAYLETH shows no sign of gathering moss.

Their latest album, “New Babylon” (issued via Argonauta Records), picks up where their 2020 album, “2020 Back to Earth,” left off. Our intrepid heroes returned to earth four years ago only to find “a cold and inhospitable place, humanity was inexorably channeled on the path to extinction.” Weighing their options, they took to their spaceship and headed out in search of a place a little more suitable to sustainable life. This led them to New Babylon, “a planet inhabited by humanoids but also by monstrous and ravenous creatures. There are ‘giants’ that march about raising immense clouds of dust, stealing and plundering everything from people. Giants much like our corporations, they know no defeat and have no weaknesses, at least apparent ones.” And so the story of “New Babylon” begins.

“New Babylon” comprises nine tracks and has a run time of 42 minutes. That’s right a sci-fi Stoner Metal album that clocks out at 42 minutes. That’s like a Black Metal album that’s exactly 66.6 minutes long. Was it intentional? Does it matter? In fact, it’s better if it wasn’t intentional. Just the universe reading our Tarot.

KAYLETH names themselves after an Isaac Asimov short story. Completely unrelated, Kayleth also features in Warhammer archives as a supreme commander of the Eldar. But again, it’s the Asimov Golden Age sci-fi short story that the band credits as inspiring their name. And it’s a pretty tight fit.

Back to the album. Lyrically, it spins a fun tale. Definitely the type of album you can put on, read through the lyrics, and just let your imagination fly. Sonically, the album is pretty solid as well. I can’t say there is any single track that stands above the rest—no single ready to steal the airwaves or the net or the whatever—but the video for “The Night” is a blast. My personal favs are “The Throne” with its heavy flail riff offset with trippy cosmic fills; “Giants March” for its Doom pace and its melodic lead solos; and “Cyber Slaves” for its Psych Blues twist which ratchets up into perpetual chug machine. Very groovy, this one.

I love this type of Stoner Metal. I group KAYLETH amongst other Sci-Fi/Fantasy Stoner heroes like SERGEANT THUNDERHOOF, KEY-EL, HOWLING GIANT, and CYBERNETIC WITCH CULT. KAYLETH’s “New Babylon” is a great story and a great album. Now I just wish it was a movie, a video game, and an RPG too.