Kalandra's career is rather atypical: it took almost ten years for the band, founded in 2012, to release their debut album The Line in 2020. After that, their rise was meteoric, taking advantage of the current craze for anything labelled ‘Nordic folk’. For the uninitiated, the Norwegian-Swedish band's universe could leave you sceptical at first sight: you're under the mistaken impression that you already know them, and that there's nothing more here than what you've already heard from Myrkur or Eivør.
It only takes one track on this second album, A Frame of Mind, to remind or demonstrate Kalandra's singularity. With I Am, judiciously placed at the start of the album like a note of intent, the band offers a fine synthesis of what is to come. Katrine Stenbekk's voice is enough to fill the space and capture our attention with a bittersweet pop delicacy that conveys hope and melancholy, opting here for English as if to welcome us more easily. Kalandra have toured with artists as diverse as A.A. Williams, Wardruna and Leprous, and it's easy to see why.
This was already the case with The Line, and it's even more so with A Frame of Mind: although Kalandra's Nordic folk plunges only sparingly into more turbulent abysses, it's enough to provide the contrast and relief needed to guarantee a journey without weariness. Bardaginn, with its almost mystical Tool-like progressive touches, is a fascinating moment of tension in the middle of the journey. Kalandra plunge us into the shadows while providing the light we need to navigate safely, the antidote to their own darkness.
A Frame of Mind is an album that soothes and heals, whether on the darkly romantic rock of Are You Ready? or the luminous strains of I'll Get There One Day. Time stops, you pause, you breathe and, above all, you allow yourself to be swept up effortlessly in an album that alternates between crescendoing intensity and nuanced serenity, as in the finale where, after climbing Segla and its almost theatrical emphasis, Kalandra's I Remember A Time offers us a sober, intimate fireside finale. At once familiar and unsettling, this second album has fun losing us without ever letting go of our grasp, a fragile, contemplative and elegant bubble that always seems on the verge of bursting but valiantly carries on, enveloping us in its warmth despite the coldness of the Scandinavian landscapes it evokes.
