It feels like an age since there was any new material from Her Name is Calla, and I some ways, it has. The tour that brought them to the public's attention supporting iLiKETRAiNS (as they then were), was in 2007, and the mini-album 'The Heritage' (which wasn't so mini) came out in 2008. Since then, there have been a couple of minor stop-gap releases - a vinyl repressing of the ultra-scarce 'Condor and River' and a super-limited 'Blood Promise' CD/DVD set, which mopped up a few 'Heritage' era odds and sods while hinting at what may come with a couple of demos. With the vinyl release of 'The Heritage' coming late into 2009, it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a sense of the band's chronology. Not that I suppose it matter all that much, but one needs to be careful when considering notions of progress, evolution and departures from previous releases.
The debut album proper, 'The Quiet Lamb,' has been threatened for a long time now, and is said to be almost ready. The first taste of this is 'Long Grass.' It isn't an obvious single, but then, Her Name is Calla aren't an obvious singles band. 'Condor and River' was an eighteen-minute epic, and 'A Moment of Clarity' may have been a standout song from their earlier sets, but an anguished how that clocked in at over six minutes was never going to fall into the category of radio-friendly pop classics.
'Long Grass' is a quiet, sprawling-string-laden affair, that swells and ebbs, while demonstrating remarkable restraint. Instead of crushing crescendos of tumultuous guitar, a plucked acoustic guitar and ukulele (I think) are slowly swept away by rising yet subtle orchestration. The percussion is subdued and largely incidental, providing the occasional swelling cymbal crash. In many respects, it harks back to the band's really early work, when they dealt more in Bends-era Radiohead acoustic numbers than the anguished howl of tracks like 'Motherfucker! It's Alive and Bleeding' and 'New England.' By the same token, it's not a million miles away from tracks like 'Rebirth' and 'Wren,' but with more advanced production. As I said, it's hard to establish notions of progress, evolution, etc. it matters not, it's a beautiful, mesmerising song that reveals more with each listen.
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The B-sides are old songs, dredged from the depths of the band’s back-catalogue and rerecorded. Does this indicate a band reviewing its past in order to move forward, or a simply a desire to bring lost songs to new fans in a new and improved form? Whatever, 'A Sleeper' is an uncharacteristically chirpy clap-along that was buried on the limited cassette versions of 'The Heritage,' while 'The White and the Skin' was one of their first self-released CD-R singles, and while this again renders charting the band's development difficult, these versions are, unquestionably an improvement on the original versions in terms of production and overall sound.
Another interesting release from a band who never fail to intrigue, and no doubt a future collector's item too!
http://www.hernameiscalla.co.uk/
8/10
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