Calla
Televise
Arena Rock Recording Co
2003
Rating: 9 little TVs sitting on top of big TVs out of 10
It’s a good thing I took my time before I wrote this review of Calla. On the first listen, I was ready to write this album off as just another shoegazer rehash, give it a 5 or something like that, and be done with it. As time went by, I kept putting off writing the review, but continued listening to the disc, liking a little more each time. But the great epiphany came when I listened to it through headphones for the first time. Everything great about Calla’s music really shines through when experienced intimately. Now I find myself yearning to listen to this album, and giving it a very high score.
The music certainly fits into the shoegazer category, for lack of somewhere else better to put it. The closest match for a sound I could make would be if you injected the slow and deliberate pace of Low into Starflyer 59. There are bits of the lyrics and vocals that bring to mind Nick Cave, and the odd rocking part that might make you think about Radiohead from time to time. They sound like a lot of people and totally unique at the same time.
The music being performed here is not your typical pop song - no catchy hooks, no verse-chorus-verse structure, no tra-la-las or what have you. What really gets you involved in this music are two things - the bass and the minimalism of the music. The bass line drives the entire album, holds it together, and tells it what to do. Removing the bass from this record would mean more than just removing one of the instruments - it would be removing the very essence of their music. And these are not busy songs - not unlike Low, each individual note leaves you with the feeling of how deliberate everything is, nothing out of place.
I wanted to write a review that said if you want to listen to music like this, listen to Starflyer 59 instead. But now I realize, although there are similarities, Calla are in a group all their own, and it’s a damn fine group.
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