Kallai releases new single “The Wave”

Rising from Portland’s underground music scene, Kallai is a band that’s bedome one of the region’s most gripping new acts. Formed in 2023, the quartet blends shoegaze, post punk and dark gothic textures into a sonic output that’s at once anthemic and emotionally charged. Featuring veteran musicians from acclaimed projects like Trance to the Sun, Luscious Apparatus and Lost Echoes, the band’s lineup sees David Gross, Daniel Henderson, Cate Hukle and Brian Wilcher bring a wealth of experience and a shared appetite for exploring new musical worlds.

Kallai’s first release, “Always/Never,” landed in March 2023 to deliver a dreamy, melancholic slice of shoegaze that introduced their atmospheric sound, followed up with “Palisades,” a track that hinted at their broader influences of post punk and synth flourishes. The eponymous debut EP, Kallai, stitched these threads together into an epic, four-track outing that marked them as a band with both vision and restraint.

Now, after a year of quiet development, they return with “The Wave,” opening the first window into the upcoming debut album We Are Forever, set to drop this autumn via the Little Cloud Records imprint. It’s an engrossing reintroduction that shows just how far they’ve come, laying down another showcase of their enduring songwriting in a dreamy rock soundscape.

Thematically, the single is inspired by Susan Stryker’s powerful essay My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix, a text that reclaims the voice of the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a metaphor for rage and social alienation. Kallai take this context and translate it into sound with theatrical flair, driven by Cate Hukle’s ethereal vocals, which rise and fall through layers of reverb-drenched guitar and steady rhythms.

Co-produced in part with Collin Hegna of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Federale, “The Wave” finds the band leaning further into alternative rock sphere while still retaining the dreamlike haze that defines their sound. Set up by the hushed twang of filtered guitar chords, the soft taps of hi hat ushers in the full arrangement of fuzzy guitar rhythms and elegant lead notes which flicker atop the enveloping instrumentation.

Floating with airy vocal melodies and tender aesthetic in the verse, the song swells with crunchy tones in the chorus, casting a spellbinding listening experience that surges with punching riff-driven energy to deliver a spectacular display of Kallai’s truly absorbing sound. With more singles lined up over the coming months and their highly anticipated debut album arriving later this year, we can’t wait to see what Kallai has in store next on their incredible musical adventure.

Listen to The Wave below

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