Calla
Scavengers
Young God

The violence of automobiles — sparks scatter across the blacktop as the Dodge rides the guardrail like a magnet. Fenders and wheel wells heaving and ho'ing with the snaking metal, trying to break free. Calla would witness a scene like this, scratch their collective chins, and come up with a plodding tempo as effortless as it is deliberate. Take the screech of metal versus metal and lay down a speed bump, picture that sucker in super-slow motion to catch every gory, indulgent frame.

Scavengers, Calla's sophomore release, captures the ugliness of scenes like these by easing them into the mise en scene, dotting their wintry landscapes with discoloration — a derelict car ass-up in a frozen pond. Calla's melodies are dominated by a deep throbbing bass that glides up and down the scales with electronic twirls and dissonant pierces thrown atop. Where lesser bands have skated, Calla chipped away the ice over a matter of days and dove right into the water, emerging minutes later to make Miles Davis take notice with their some kind of blue.

The curiosity and ambition displayed in Scavengers' well-crafted songs will appease the most ardent fan of Low's dreary laments or Karlheinz Stockhausen's electronic sparseness. Co-produced by Michael Gira (formerly of The Swans), Scavengers keeps things melodic while letting samples and programming make their presence felt in an unobtrusive way.

Folkie Woody Guthrie and minimalist composer Terry Riley would each have elements to tune into on Scavengers. Guthrie's ears would perk with "Fear of Fireflies" and its irresistible line: "Sea of fireflies hover in the dark/ Following tracers scattered in the park/ Following me," while Riley gets his due on tracks like "Mayzelle," with its fields of crickets and gnashing machinery, and "Slum Creeper," which carries a guitar riff with the staccato itch of Tom Waits' voice.

As Scavengers establishes, even sluggish pacing can be fraught with violence. Anyone who hears the dichotomy between Calla's four-string hum and the atonal shrieks that cap it knows that this is music to die to. The croaky restraint screams "Rosebud" and more, but thankfully, with Calla, you get more than a goddamned sled.

— Yancey Strickler (ystrickler@yahoo.com)