Televise by Calla

This album is the band's masterpiece. Great guitar riffs are found throughout the album beginning with the opening songs "Strangler" and "Monument." "Don't Hold Your Breath" has plenty of nice things going on, "Pete the Killer," despite the title, is beautiful and cinematic. "Customized" features gorgeous, trippy guitar, aching vocals, and distortion used to great advantage. "As Quick as it Comes/Carreras" is quietly brilliant and sends one peacefully downriver like a Nick Drake vocal. Aurelio Valle's guitar work at the end of the song is breathtakingly beautiful, much like Mick Ralphs on Mott the Hoople's "El Camino Dolo Roso" or James Williamson on his and Iggy's "Master Charge." This is one of my favorite songs by this band. "Televised" is another and features my favorite guitar riff by Valle. It's so great I take it to bed with me (in my head) at night. This song again reminds me of Ralphs and Williamson. I felt like I'd been waiting all my life to hear this song. "Surface Scratch" closes out the album with sonic guitar background and slow, quiet vocals, nicely understated compared to the two songs that precede it. This is truly a masterpiece of an album.

I admit I had not heard of Calla before but I saw these guys open for Interpol not long ago, and was simply blown away. I bought their second album "Scavengers" on the spot, and now their new album."Televise" is not as dark as "Scavengers", and rocks more, which is when Calla really shines. The opener "Strangler" is one of the highlights, as is "Dont Hold Your Breath", "Customised", and best of all "Televised", with its drawn out and hypnotizing riffs. The comparison may not be really good but the band reminds me of how early-Cure might have sounded if they started recording now.I'll be interested in seeing how Calla evolves from here. Meanwhile, I am very content with this album, and can't wait to see them live again.

I have to say that I have all of Calla's CDs, and this is the one that I go back to over and over. It is by far their best album from end to end. Track 1 and 2 are great; track 5 "Pete the Killer" is my favorite, and the ones in between are great transitions. I put this CD on and just let it repeat over and over. For Calla fans, you will not be disappointed. It is a great CD to play at full volume or as background music. Get it!

This is the perfect CD to listen to when you're driving country roads at night under a full moon. It rocks, yes, but it also sets up a mood where the individual songs don't stand out as much as the entire album creates the kind of atmosphere that could make it the soundtrack to your life. It reminds me of one of my favorite CDs, the Doves' "Lost Souls" which has these same qualities and is almost symphonic in its effect.

"Televise" was my introduction to Calla (though it's the band's third album), and what a first impression it made on me.Based in New York City, Calla prove that not every band from NYC are riding the post-punk wave to the riches on the shore. This album employs spiky guitars and atmosperics to provide a dense and dark listening experience.Opener 'Strangler' follows typical song structures combined with downright scary lyrics, but the rest of the album is more experimental. 'Monument' is sparse, which makes its haunting guitar line that much more efficatious. 'Don't Hold Your Breath' moves in with the chilling lyric 'This day is dead' and the vocal is briefly offset by a bright and chirpy guitar segment before squalling darkness comes along and casts a pall over the end of the song, and 'Pete the Killer' is an atmospheric highlight along the lines of a quiet MBV moment, and its held together by a simple-yet-effective (and unforgettable) bass line.'Customized' starts the second half of the album, "Televised's" most potent set of songs. 'Customized' doesn't sound like anything memorable at first, but upon repeated listens the slithering guitar, howling atmospherics and distant lyrics make it a darkly satisfying masterpiece.'As Quick as it Comes/Carrera' starts as a nearly silent ballad and ambles along for two minutes before the band builds the song to an unforgettable crescendo that could be a quieter, more refined and reigned-in Godspeed You Black Emperor song or Low if that band stretched out a little bit more. It is certainly one of the albums highlights, and after 'Alacran's' instrumental atmospherics blow by, 'Televise' comes along as one of the albums two towering masterpieces. It starts off with a skittering drum beat and funky strut before ice-cold guitar rises to the surface and flips the song upside down. After the lyrics cut out just over two minutes into the song, the guitar morphs into a Spector-ish wall of sound, fades away to silence before coming back like an avalanche down a sun-baked mountain.Calla have crafted a memorable, if not dark and atmospheric, album that at first sounds too basic to be enthralling, but upon repeated spins the listener is rewarded with new facets of musicianship. It's like crawling into your bed at night - you know it's familiar but it takes a few moments to find the comfort zone. "Televised" won't blow you over the first time, but each successive listen is a reward unto itself. If atmospheric music is your bag, fill it with this album.