Portland, OR-based quartet Kallai build a gripping, layered rock entrancement throughout their new album We Are Forever — showcasing a fantastic blend of dream-pop, shoegaze, and rock across its eight memorable tracks. Kallai has been making considerable waves since the beginning of last year, owing both the critical success of last year’s self-titled EP — which strongly caught our ears last June — and their role as co-founders of the sold-out Dreamgaze PDX music festival in 2024.
Amongst the album’s standout tracks are previously featured gems “The Wave” and “Falling” — both coming in succession prior to riveting album finale “As Night Falls.” Both earlier released tracks are exemplary of the band’s knack for structural momentum, with “The Wave” in particular excelling in its rise from dreamy verses into a bursting, shoegaze-ready invigoration.
Album opener “The Hymn / The Beautiful Ones” also excels in its enthralling songwriting and production. Subdued guitar strums and burgeoning bass pulses ease inward as conversational vocal snippets show alongside, eventually emerging into ghostly vocals and dark, simmering guitar buzzes. The final minute proves especially haunting with its chilly vocal presence and droning guitar layers.
The ensuing “Amor Occidit Omnia” stirs as well, embracing a more post-punk tint in its sturdy rhythmic propulsions and jangling guitar mystique. Aforementioned finale “As Night Falls” stuns too, expanding artfully from orchestral-tinged nocturnal intrigue into spine-tingling vocals and prancing guitar trickles. We Are Forever is a thorough success from Kallai, who continue to wholly immerse in their atmospheric, emotive shoegaze and post-punk synergy.
—
“As Night Falls” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
