Quick Takes – February 2026: Album Reviews

Kalandra´s first-ever live album, comes with a full concert film captured during their show at Lafayette in London on 21st September 2024. It celebrates 15 years of music, growth and creative evolution – “time has a quiet way of moving” they note.

Led by the striking vocal presence of Katrine Stenbeck, the set brings together the highlights of their catalogue, where brooding washes and textures with tasteful guitar combine create an immersive and expansive sound.

The cross cultural aspects combine with a feel for something a bit heavier that inevitably comes with the finale when Bardaginn switches from invocations in the native tongue to crunching and crushing guitar work.

The State Of The World casts a darker spell as the strong doses of ethereality reach a peak in Borders. The segue from Ram into Ensom which picks up a pace and drama into the heavies part of the set. Waves of crescendos in Helvegen come with dark guitar power chords, verging on a Doom quality but lightened by the soaring vocal. A strange comparison, but the fragility and careful craft in their work is not dissimilar to our own The Unthanks.

Like many live albums, a possible gateway for new fans while the converted can wallow in an entrancing and atmospheric adventure.

Aleph Aguiar is a jazz guitarist, and Sugar On My Blackbeans is his third album. The album’s musical focus, across nine original compositions, is the swing based Latin jazz of the 1960s. He is joined by: Quentin Collins (trumpet), Liam Dunachie (Hammond organ), Will Fry (percussion) and Shane Forbes (drums). The performances on the album range from funky and sparkling to mellow and expressive, featuring inventive improvised soloing from the guitar, trumpet and hammond organ. It is an absolute joy to listen to, and that Aleph Aguiar also composes for contemporary dance, shines through in the fluent physicality of the music.

The title track, an engaging and affectionate salute to the artist’s Venezuelan heritage, has an infectious groove and some stunning musicianship, particularly Aleph Aguiar’s angular guitar solo and choppy rhythm guitar. One For Sorrow, Two For Joy, explores the more mellow side of the ensemble’s playing with some beautifully empathetic playing.

The Willow Trio are a Glasgow-based clarsach trio consisting of Maya MacAdam, Sophie Rocks and Romy Wymer, established in 2020. The clarsach is the Celtic triangular frame harp, Scotland’s most ancient instrument. Together they ply a fusion of classical, folk and further afield, the sort often prefaced by chamber.

That may all sound a bit delicate, and, by and large it is, but the temptation to slip into twee is neatly sidestepped, this most noticeable in Inkspills, track 2, where a foot driven rhythm sparks it all off. A range of inspirations get explored, titles like Miss Mollie Moo and The Gentle Giant offering clues as to the varied moods. Jasper offers a mid-album syncopated delight, whereas Golden Toad almost immerses you in the cascade of notes the trio have at their fingertips.

File for under when you need a change from all the same old, whether in the news or on your player of choice.

Chamber folk from Bristol, largely instrumental, but with a difference, as, alongside the usual array of strings, a prominent feature is of clarinet, and gloriously so. This is the rich evocative tones of clarinet as applied in Middle Eastern musical cultures, imparting a deep exotic charm to the wash of strings from the varied violins and harps of the other 4 members.

Hedera take inspiration from England, Scotland, France, Bali, Georgia, Bulgaria, Ethiopia. Tunes are a mix of self-penned and traditional.

It is music easy to get lost in, buoyed by the cascading wash of melody and counter-melody, with a range in dynamic that belies the description of chamber-folk. Opening track, Salamander is the best place to start; they got that right, but highlights abound, with the graceful majesty of Shen Khan Venakhi being one, with echoes of a ceremonial wedding. As the choral vocals break out, for the first time on the album, they offer a shiver of delight to the proceedings.

Elsewhere, She’s Sweetest When She’s Naked is a delicately layered pastoral meander, sweet with harp, before the clarinet adds a delicious sourness. The Balkan textures of Kota Mi Mama Rodila close this enticing set with a blend of accordion and clarinet, the vocals then making a second appearance to leave the listener hungry for more.

What happens when you cross Delain (Martijn Westerholt) with Auri (Johanna Kurkela) and throw in the orchestral arranging of Mikko P. Mustonen.

A perfect fit too for the primordial singing spirit from the world of J. R. R. Tolkien who gives a name to the band, as the combination expands on an ethereal concept. An exercise in in symphonic songwriting whose opening touches of whimsicality and fantasy ambience doesn’t let up for the next hour.

Joanna Kurkela is a star, soothing and soaring; the delicacy of her vocal carry us off into a world far from the reality as Martijn parks his heavier leanings in favour of sweeping majestic passages and crescendos. A couple of Troy Donockley cameos vary the pallette and give Dawn Of Avatars a gentle rush. Dramatic gestures and grand shifts in dynamics cross swords with a sense of subtlety and delicate touches in a set whose song titles offer an expectation fulfilled in spades. An atmospheric and evocative piece of music.

Channeling sepia-toned romance and gritty rock ‘n’ roll thrills, Howling Bells call in the influences of likes of Tom Waits, Sonic Youth, Fleetwood Mac, and Björk, in an easy and lush, dreamy and soft focussed concoction. A busy-ness at which some of our Indie stars would raise an eyebrow, Strange Life is a vibrant creation of musical alchemical magic. 

A new set of songs that somehow have a familiar feel – something vaguely retro or tuning in from another lifetime and as suggested by Juanita Stein, a record about experience and wisdom.

A kaleidoscopic carousel of dreamy sounds in three minute (or less) nuggets are supplemented by bursts of adrenalin filled energy and cathartic release from Sacred Land and the twisty turny vibes on Sweet Relief.

Accompanied by such an exuberant and often opulent soundtrack, to pick a line from the song of the same name, being stuck in Melbourne might not be such a bad thing.

Almost 13 years in the making, In Verses is a culmination of the last decade of life experiences that have brought Karnivool to this point. , As you’d anticipate from the gestation, meticulously formed and delivered, the ten tracks journey through collective feelings of frustration, catharsis, and a rediscovery of identity.

The Progressive/Metal/Rock/impossible to define qualities of Karnivool make for an absorbing album that sits with their best work – maybe not so much hyperbole at the excitement of a new record, but a genuinely welcome return with polished vocals atop a series of bucking grooves, juddering rhythms and tight dynamics. Built to thrill and raise the hairs on the back of the neck that peak with the dirty and distorted fuzz on All It Takes.

Icing on a sumptuous cake comes via Guthrie Govan’s solo on Reanimation and Opal strikes as their ambitious and emotional creation with a considered depth. A return, that while after the relief of hearing new Karnivool music, is nothing short of triumphant.