Her Name Is Calla
The Heritage (Gizeh)
I am standing alone on a huge icy plain. There is a gentle, yet chillingly cold breeze containing the odd smattering of icy flakes. There are imposing, brilliant white mountains up ahead of me in the distance. I don’t know where I am or why I am here, but I don’t care because this is the sound of Her Name Is Calla and I feel comfortable.
I used to be a massive advocate of the post-rock genre – sweeping and soaring, marauding and majestic, epic and elegiac – but of late I have found the genre feeling tired, tepid, and predictable. Luckily, a band like Her Name Is Calla have come along to inject a bit of life into post-rock’s tired old legs. That said, it’d be unfair to simply categorise them so narrowly, as it is clear that experimentalism is a big part of Calla’s ethos.
Yes, this album is dark; it’s not an album you’re likely to hear at a club or a party – there’s more substance to it than that. Tom Morris’ vocal delivery is spell-binding and ethereal, whilst maintaining a dusky delicacy akin to Jeff Buckley, only more brooding and desolate. Opener ‘Nylon’ will entice you in to the cold, icy world in which Calla live and you won’t want to leave.
Like the post-rock genre, this album owes a lot to classical music with the formulated build-ups providing twists in plot and sonic themes. ‘Wren’ begins with the by now familiar icy cold guitar tone contrasting with desolate and distant vocals before the introduction of string accompaniment which takes the arrangement back down from the celestial planes.
The Heritage is a deliciously dark, brooding, and disconcerting effort, yet strangely warm and comfortable.
Phillip Quirie
