Pitchfork

[Posted Friday, October 10th, 2003 02:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Sad bastards Calla are pounding the mud this month and using their creeping rock dirges to aggravate your seasonal depression to a nearly fatal pitch. Dude, when those guys mope-rock, they mope-rock hard! Who wants to get their mope on with the big dogs? Black Heart Procession, you wanna test Calla? I don't think so. Bring it!

If it sounded like I was dissin', I was just playin'. And truncatin' my gerunds, apparently. Calla is actually a pretty rad band. Their latest record on Arena Rock, Televise, broke away from the proclivities of feedback, hiss and obfuscation that informed their early albums, and actual songs hovered into view. Slowly , but they eventually got where they were going. Calla mete out their Morricone guitars, billowing basslines and Kevin Shields vocals in geological time, tracing the contours of barren, star-bathed landscapes under vast and uncaring skies. The intelligent depressive never had it so good.

This tour will feature Calla's new guitar player, longtime friend and collaborator Peter Gannon. Sharing the dates will be Longwave, a fun and extremely pleasant (if somewhat innocuous) Interpol-lite confection, courtesy of Star Time International. Dates (all shows from October 11th with Longwave):

10-10 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
10-11 San Francisco, CA - Slim's
10-12 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan
10-13 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
10-14 Vancouver, British Columbia - Sonar
10-16 Iceland - Iceland Airwaves Festival
10-19 Chicago, IL - Double Door
10-21 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig
10-22 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
10-23 Buffalo, NY - Showplace Theatre
10-24 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
10-25 Boston, MA - Paradise