It’s always great to discover a new band or artist in this scene. I had never heard of a band called Cala and initially thought that the album I recently spotted was their first – which it wasn’t.
Turned out it’s their second but as far as the style is concerned, it could be their first. Compared to the very good debut, From the River (2023) that I also checked out, it seems the band had at some point decided to remake themselves, to an extent, during the couple of years between the debut and this new, self titled release.
If the first album’s stylistic reference point could be said to be something like Mànran, this new one sits more in the box especially with Elephant Sessions – who also hail from Inverness – and there are some Project Smok vibes in some tunes as well.
The trad and folk style of the debut has turned into an impressively funky, and sometimes outright rocking, all-instrumental offering that I have been playing almost on power play. These guys are great musicians and their use of digital is commendably moderate and exists to enrich the band sound instead of making the musicians servants to technology. Only the opening track, Veto, comes across as pretty tech dominated, but it does give a big energy blast to commence the album with.
The tunes are all original and all quality stuff. The music is mostly rooted in tradition, but the whole package is essentially 100% modern and pretty intense for the most part. When I say intense, I do not mean aggressive, just that there’s a lot of focused energy and it sounds like these guys not only have really honed their craft but also that they’ve had a very good time recording this.
What I especially like here is that the compositions are not repetitive, but tend to evolve and take turns and sometimes come up with some surprises. There is one particularly big what??? moment in Picture This but I won’t reveal it, let’s just say that it made me smile, big time.
Enough now. Cala’s second album is one of the brightest and most positive music spots in my year and I really need to see these guys on stage at some point as I bet their gigs are a blast – with this material and this musicianship, they must be.
