West York­shire band Cal­lis unveil their long-await­ed debut EP release 2nd Feb­ru­ary, called Sex Yoga. We won’t be for­get­ting that title in a hurry.

The Tod­mor­den-based band have been described as a “Work­ing-class sym­pho­ny of North­ern grit, new wave nuances gal­vanised with a post-punk atti­tude”. Dean Molyneux (lead vocals, gui­tar), Bryn Davies (back­ing vocals, bass) and Tyler Han­ley (drums) bring to Cal­lis a sound laden with dri­ving rhythm and acidic melody befit­ting the Calder Valley’s counter-cul­tur­al legacy. 

As on their pre­vi­ous out­put, Seattle’s leg­endary pro­duc­er Gor­don Raphael, whose work is behind sem­i­nal albums from The Strokes, “Is This It” and “Room on Fire”, has pro­duced and guid­ed Cal­lis’ lat­est record­ing. The EP’s first sin­gle “Dream Sequence” was released in Octo­ber 2023. 

Says Raphael: “This is awe­some music. It reminds me of ear­ly Seat­tle grunge in a way, which is some­thing I grew up with and so I want­ed to get involved … I think after these record­ing ses­sions, Cal­lis is going to go from Tod­mor­den to the moon. Every­body’s gonna know about it.“

Dream Sequence is a tex­tur­al and dra­mat­ic track that shifts and builds in inten­si­ty, cul­mi­nat­ing in its emo­tion­al cho­rus (indeed the lyrics are about ‘life trau­ma’). The gui­tar open­ing notes set the scene with a stark Joy Divi­sion-esque feel, lead­ing into Dean Molyneux’s dense vocals. All the while, the rum­bling bass pro­pels the track for­ward. Sec­ond track God­frey lets rip with dark and moody bass, anguished vocals and jagged gui­tar notes while Green­ish Meat veers more towards the post punk ter­ri­to­ry inhab­it­ed by the recent raft of Calder Val­ley bands while final track Lemon­ade Rene­gade merges a gor­geous grunge riff with retro psych touches.

Good to see Cal­lis tak­ing things for­ward with their debut EP and live shows to come.

Sex Yoga by Cal­lis out Feb­ru­ary 2nd 2024