It’s 4 am, it’s dark. I’m alone with the remnants of another embittered argument, and the taste of a turgid affair in my mouth. The air is littered with half truths and broken promises, and the come down is hitting me hard – ‘What’s the point? What’s happening? Who am I? Where am I going?’ Cleaning away the debris, the guilt and the ashes of a broken fantasy, what should be the soundtrack? I’ll tell you; Her Name Is Calla is what.
‘The Heritage’ opens as it means to go on claustrophobic, disconnected and disconcerting – it’s bloody great. ‘Nylon’ is underpinned with metallic, gothic guitar-scapes, given a darker edge by the use of mallets on the toms and a tendency to avoid the snare until the final crescendo. Throughout the album is atmospheric noise that wouldn’t be out of place on G!YBE or Set Fire To Flames release, see the end of ‘Nylon’ and beginning of ‘New England’ (or come to think of it, the beginning and end of all the tracks), which are emboldened by the use of industrial sounds, as much as they are with strings and swooping horns. ‘New England’ goes onto resemble sheet metal scraping against bones, until it builds into a gothic tidal wave of noise standing up against a generation slapped on the back for any minor achievement, and coming to the realisation that we all have the propensity to fall through the cracks that lay before us and into the shadows, which hold something dark and terrifying, something that may sound very much like Her Name Is Calla.
‘Paying For Your Funeral’ starts like an outtake from the Moody Blues’ ‘On The Threshold Of A Dream’ (which is a compliment by the way) and is less of a song, more of an awareness, an all enveloping sound that’s like a mastodon; slow moving and heavy, but determined in its countenance. ‘Wren’ boasts a sublime guitar sound that conjures up images of sorrow and loneliness, added to by the use of chamber instrumentation, a more approachable G!YBE, more approachable only because of the use of vocals which hint at false promises – ‘There’s gold in those hills’ – but ends with the despair of the chamber instruments and again the atmospheric sounds, which render it remarkably desolate.
Bear with me on this next one but… ‘Mutherfucker, It’s Alive And It’s Bleeding’ (aside for the fact it’s one of the best song titles ever) sounds like Radiohead if they’d foregone computers and technology, and instead tried to create the equivalent using ‘proper’ instruments – it’s moving, beautiful and disturbing. When the cello and violin build and scrape, introducing the angry vocals backed by a choir of satanic monks, it had hairs I never knew existed standing on end. ‘Rebirth’ is a bleak piano refrain overlaying the constant noise that is kept running throughout the album. It hints at hope and salvation, with choral like vocals harmonising with the feedback of guitar, before we return to the sound of life moving on….
Damn them! Damn them and their dastardly secret tracks. At 11:57 into the last track comes a beaut, with deafening feedback to introduce it. If you thought they rely too heavily on effects and industrial noise then think again. Mainly acoustic, this shows that Her Name Is Calla can shit out dark and disturbing on demand. It also highlights just how amazing Tom Morris is as a vocalist. Soaring, reaching the dizzy highs and lows of emotion, his voice transforms the song into something truly mesmerising (and probably the most palatable to the mainstream).
As post rock becomes something tired, dull and predictable, Her Name Is Calla have created something that could not only invigorate, but save the genre and give it it’s ‘Rebirth’. This album doesn’t just hint at greatness, it brazenly wears it tattoo’d across its forehead.
Released 16/06/08 on Gizeh Records
