East London’s Calvacade returned recently with their latest single ‘Used To Know Me’. After a weekend in bed reading Jeff Vander Meer’s The Southern Reach trilogy, frontman Connor Duggan was inspired to pen this reflective tale.
Aching guitars race out into the unknown with a recklessness that younger generations yearn for and older ones raise a wry smile to. Steve Norris’ drumming keeps them apace with Milburn hi-hats and Rifles-esque drum rolls, which explode into life alongside Jack Campbell’s bombastic guitars. United, a sense of character abandonment grows. As though, after a brutal self-examination of life’s missed chances, a new positive attitude will grab them by the horns the second time around.
Through Duggan, the protagonist's anguish and resentment ooze out with tinges of Matthew Murphy's (The Wombats) and Blaine Harrison’s (Mystery Jets) sense of romanticism. Duggan also possesses a snarl which catapults himself and the band away from pastiche into a truly exciting realm. It allows fragility and vulnerability to dissipate to adventure and progress and back again.
Despite the inner turmoil, Calvacade are mastering their creativity and harnessing an identity few would want to miss.