Calla: Televise : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Because they don't play the garage rock that the kids are digging nowadays, Calla are often overlooked as one of New York's finest underground acts. Televise, the trio's third album, is lush and goth-y and druggy. On "Don't Hold Your Breath" and "Customized," fuzzed-over guitar parts alternate with delicate ringing ones, underneath a snaking bass line. The sound is vital and sad and insecure all at the same time, a sense reflected in singer Aurelio Valle's anxious lyrics: "All my thoughts have started to wear off/Just because you said so," he whispers on "Astral." The opener, "Strangler," is miserable like Radiohead's Kid A -- the resigned shrug of someone who either won't take his medication or takes way too much of it. "I can get the same effect if you strangle me," sings Valle in a hushed yawn of sexual ennui. Televise is a seductive piece of work and a solid step forward for Calla's songcraft. And if it doesn't make you want to either cry or fuck, it will at least help you fall asleep.

JENNY ELISCU
(RS 915 – February 6, 2003)