There’s something terribly exciting about struggling to pinpoint exactly where a band fit on the genre spectrum. The initial bemusement quickly makes way to a different kind of listening. One that forces the reviewer’s mind to work by association, waiting for those moments where a connection springs up. There are a handful of these instances on Her Name Is Calla’s third album ’Navigator’. Only, more often than not, they’re immediately followed by music so strikingly unique and personal, dashing any attempt at drawing a definite ancestry. Beautiful, haunting, expressive as they are impressive, the UK quintet have delved into the darkest depths of the heart, plowed its murky substance and out of it a quite stunning work of art they have created.
In any case, the closest I ever got to a concise definition of what exactly Her Name Is Calla do was “slowcore-tinged folk with sporadic experimentations elsewhere”. I also had a philistine version that went: “like a numerically-depleted and brooding Arcade Fire, if they’d suddenly found the courage to give more consistency to their experimentative side”. Whichever you pick, it’s still unlikely you’re imagining anything like the delightfully twisted and engrossing music this bunch make. And it all starts with a unassuming folk song. ’I Was On The Back Of A Nightingale’ builds on the airy combination of Tom Morris’ soft tones, minimal chord strokes, a reverberating banjo and light-handed percussions. It’s light years away from some of the grandiose pieces to come, but also a cleverly prudent first step into the album’s overall downbeat mood.
Navigator by Her Name is Calla
From hereon, shit unreservedly gets real. ’The Roots Run Deep’’’s tenebrous electronica beat cum vocals morphs into an uncategorizable, yet persistently affecting, chaos of noisy strings and back again. That twilit thread of sublime gloom is what animates the hypnotic piano-driven ’Ragman Roll’, the jazzy deformed-orchestra finale of ’Meridian Arc’, the peculiar ambiances of interludes of sorts It’s Called Daisy and ’Whale Fall: A Journal, until the final notes of sweet folk closer ‘Perfect Prime’.
Her Name Is Calla undoubtedly hit the highest of highs when they allow themselves the space and time to expand their already striking sounds into something almost unwieldy (most of the time in the best way possible). 8m30s long ’Navigator’ is potentially the album’s finest moment. Morris gently ushers the listener into a world of fragility, made of delicately picked guitars and an ominous gong. A woman’s dulcet verse, the gradual eruption of rousing strings, arpeggios menacingly building-up, all combining towards a frustratingly short-lived but emphatic climax. Even on the rare occasions when guilty of giving in to a meandering approach, as some will likely feel is the case on ‘Dreamland’, Her Name Is Calla never fail to spring surprises. That’s a skill very few bands can boast to possess nowadays, but it won’t matter anyhow because you won’t be listening to any other bands for a while after this.
4.5/5
’Navigator’ by Her Name Is Calla is out now on Function Records.
Her Name Is Calla links: Facebook|Official Website|Bandcamp|Twitter
Words by James Berclaz-Lewis (@swissbearclaw)
