Calla at the Empty Bottle
Chicago, October 30, 2005
I’m offering this simple question to indie kids from ages one to twenty-two: How are you not losing your collective shit over the new Calla album, Collisions? I mean, sure, Calla isn’t hewing to current trends like “freak-folk” or “being Canadian,” instead throwing in their lot with musical trends already being eulogized on VH-1. But you guys love anti-heroes! Sure, there’s a couple tracks that scream to the heavens, “Track Forward! Track Forward!” But when did that stop you from anointing a new darling?
The answers have less to do with the music Calla makes and more to do with the path they’ve taken to get there. Calla likes to do things backwards. They messed around in the studio, then became a live band; they started out with experimental leanings, then went rock. And they’ve been around since at least ’97, somehow making sad, dense music before Livejournal even existed. And here they were, playing a bar show on the Sunday night before Halloween.