Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Loving someone is not good enough unless it’s done with sheer enthusiasm, complete abandon and with the ability to acknowledge that perfection is a state of mind that deceives and plays cruel tricks on the heart whilst the mind allows its own measure of deceiving to take place. Loving someone is no good, as the adopted Liverpool band Kalandra are at excellent pains to point out in their latest single, unless the chance to Love You Right is seized.
The healthy mix of the Nordic beauty, the feeling of Liverpool strength and subtle fusion of Folk and Rock sits at the very expanse heart that is Kalandra and it is a heart that has brought much joy to the world and defies the uncertainty and perhaps collected insecurity that remains when some talk of what can be achieved when music becomes a hybrid of expressions, of different nationalities playing around with themes and subtle ideas. In Kalandra, the heart of music is displayed with confidence and true commitment, it is the lover from abroad who understands how the person from the city thinks and it is special.
Love You Right is no different, it is not a separate beast compared to the previous songs that the band have released and yet there is a melancholic oblivion that rejoices in the vocals of Katrine Ødegård Stenbekk, a flourishing of discretion that allows the flood of a altered emotion to come striding through and across the perfect musicianship that the band have always striven to place before the audience.
The new single is demure but epic, it sweeps across the senses like a sudden warm wind across the packed winter ice of Scandinavia and allows the heart to know that this young band has more than come of age in the last couple of years, they understand the relationship between heart and mind with absolute certainty.
Perhaps nobody can ever truly love you the way you feel you deserve but in Love You Right, Kalandra make more of a passionate plea than most.
Kalandra are performing at the Northern Lights event at The Kazimier on Wednesday 25th November.
Ian D. Hall