CALLIGRAM ‘POSITION | MOMENTUM’ CD

Joy can be found in the most unlikely of places. A listen through the latest offering from London-based five piece Calligram may not immediately conjure up feelings of immediate joy, but rest assured – between the blistering howls and blackened riffs, there is much to celebrate.

The multi-national quintet decamped to The Parlour Studios in Kettering to record Position | Momentum with Russ Russell (Napalm Death, Memoriam, At The Gates) during the summer of 2022. The follow up to 2020s The Eye Is The First Circle doesnt ease up on intensity; if anything, giving the chaos a little more room to breathe has shaped Calligram into something even more formidable than before.

Sonically they have further refined their amalgamation of bilious D-beat punk and ice cold black metal. The results are as abrasive as one would hope, but ceding space to atmospheric passages helps create a claustrophobic, ominous ambience to proceedings; allowing some light in only serves to accentuate the darkness further.