Given the unorthodox approach used by Her Name Is Calla to write their debut full length album, The Quiet Lamb, I must confess that I approached the album with a certain degree of apprehension as to whether they could make all the different instruments used fully gel for an entire album. I am pleased to announce that my concerns could not have been more misplaced. What Her Name Is Calla have produced is not just coherent, it is a beautiful, dark, seductive, piece of work so strewn with melancholy it could break anyone’s heart.

Album opener, Moss Giant, is a piano based instrumental which is beautiful in its simplicity and pretty much sets the tone for the entire album. This leads nicely into track two, A Blood Promise, which starts very calmly with a slow guitar riff that is built on by initially soft, longing vocals and a progression of additional instruments. The song then reaches its climax with a quiet before the storm which then explodes into a Street Spirit style monster with the wailing vocal rising above an orchestra of sound.

When you reach track five of the album I’d seriously recommend getting some supplies in (see Renton’s monologue when going cold turkey in Trainspotting for details). If you’ve never heard Condor and River before you could be forgiven for thinking that the 17 minute 6 second epic, 9 minutes of which being instrumental, is a bit pretentious. That does, however, not stop it from being fantastic. Like most songs on the album it starts slowly then gradually builds into massive wall of noise, and when the vocals eventually kick in they are guaranteed to make the hair on your neck stand up.

Although Condor and River is probably seen as Her Name Is Calla’s signature track, for me the album’s best song comes in the form of Long Grass. On the surface it appears really quite blissful but after a proper listen the deep longing and sense of loss takes over. This is no more apparent than in the wistful opening lyric “the grass has grown tall, it’s covered my footprints”. After the almost Celtic sounding, picked, intro the song grows but to a lesser extent than others on the album and is all the better for it. There is still that crescendo to end but the build is much less pronounced. It is this lack of grandiose which makes Long Grass stand out, giving it a far more emotionally bare, honest feel.

The Quiet Lamb ends with the three part The Union. Many people will consider this unnecessary overkill, in its entirety it spans just shy of twenty minutes, and I’m sorry to say doesn’t bring a great deal more to the album other than time. This, however, is not necessarily a criticism because if you love this album as much as I do, you too will not want it to end and it does continue in the same vein as the previous nine songs on the album.

In an interview with the Monograph Tom from Her Name Is Calla said The Quiet Lamb “isn’t ever supposed to be played in the background” and he couldn’t be more right. Although violins, synthesisers and brass are used extensively throughout the album it could never, and should never, be described or seen as ambient music. It may seem a bit of a struggle to sit down and give the album your full attention for the whole seventy five minutes but I guarantee that if you do you’ll love every heart breaking minute of it.

Words by Duncan Graham
A regular gig goer and demon at the bar, Duncan has a keen eye for spotting emerging talent. He is Co-editor of the Monograph.
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