|
|
| |
|
|
COLLISIONS
BEGGARS
|
|
|
|
|
|
In between 2003’s Televise and this year’s Collisions, NYC’s Calla lost bassist Sean Donovan and added Peter Gannon on guitar, so it’s no surprise that Collisions is a reinvention of sorts. Although the band’s signature shoe-gazer guitars still anchor their moody sensibility, the Philip Glass electronic flourishes and meandering song structures are gone, and on "Initiate," languorous attempts at scene setting are abandoned in favor of Jesus and Mary Chainsaw riffs, an arrangement that relies on shifting loud/soft dynamics, and an alluring vocal melody. Deep-voiced frontman Aurelio Valle trades his tortured mumbles about girls for a heftier, more aggressive croon; something’s bugging him, and the urgent guitars on "Play Dead" and "Swagger" drive home that point. The mariachi acoustic guitar that pops up in "Stumble" may be a reminder of Calla’s Texas roots. But it’s an anomaly on an album that balances pop-song structure with sprays of My Bloody Valentine guitars. Calla + Celebration + Appomatix | Middle East upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | Nov 4 | 617.864.EAST
|
