Portland’s own KALLAI have just dropped a bomb with their debut LP, “We Are Forever,” and it will scorch your eardrums and stir your soul. Released on October 17th via Little Cloud Records, this eight-track beast is a journey through towering shoegaze, dream-pop shimmer, and post-punk grit that lands with the force of a sledgehammer.
Let’s cut to the chase. This band rocks. They’re a four-piece, and you feel every member’s presence in the mix. Front and centre is Cate Hukle, a force of nature on guitars, synths, and vocals. She’s leading a charge, drawing from her experience as a mixed-race queer woman to fuel an album that is as politically charged as it is personally liberating. Flanking her is David Gross, with six-string magic that cuts and soars in equal measure, with Brian Wilcher on bass, while Daniel Henderson on drums provides the heartbeat, a thunderous foundation that lets the guitar squalls swirl overhead. This is a band, a unit, and their chemistry is REAL.
Recorded between the hallowed halls of Revolver Studios with Collin Hegna and their own Synthetikit Studio, “We Are Forever” sounds massive. It’s an album built on texture and tension. You want riffs? They’ve got ‘em. From the hallucinatory, tidal swell of the opener “The Hymn / The Beautiful Ones” that slowly builds into a Mogwai-esque epic, to the sharper, post-punk attack of “Amor Occidit Omnia,” the guitars are the stars. They chime, they screech, they build into walls of noise that are as beautiful as they are brutal.
But don’t think for a second this is just a noise fest. Tracks like “Always/Never” offer a reprieve of sheer beauty, a moment where the haze breaks and a killer melody shines through like a sunbeam through a storm cloud. Then there’s “The Wave,” a track that rides a dynamic groove from lulls to ear-shattering crescendos. They explore post-rock in “Protector,” with the desolate grandeur of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and dive into hypnotic grooves on “Another World.”
The climax, “As Night Falls,” is a six-minute epic that feels like a slow-motion explosion, a majestic and understated collapse that leaves you breathless. It’s the perfect, sprawling end to a record that demands to be played loud.
Hukle grapples with the big stuff—the turbulence of life in an age of rising authoritarianism, the search for hope in a collapsing world. This isn’t abstract poetry; it’s born from lived experience, a scream into the void that says, “We have always been here, we will always be here.” It gives the entire album a gripping, urgent core.
“We Are Forever” is not a polite record. It’s powerful. The vocals are often submerged in reverb, not always clear, but that’s the point. It’s not about spelling everything out; it’s about feeling it in your gut. KALLAI has made rock and roll for a world in flux. Now go turn it up until the walls shake.