Anna Calvi’s voice, an enormous wailing thing, is the dominant presence on her first album in five years, ‘Hunter’. It takes over and demolishes anything that stands in her path. In many ways, the record’s message does the same thing. Don’t fall into the trap of using gender stereotypes. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. Be yourself.
The lead single, Don’t Take The Girl Out Of My Boy, is a song about defiance. Everyone should be free to identify themselves however they choose, without society’s expectations holding us back. As Calvi put it when describing ‘Hunter’: “Free from the story that either gender is given, free from worrying how people would judge me on what I want to do with my body and myself.”
While the track opens with a flair for the indie - bold chords and some quaint backing vocals - Calvi overthrows any idea of holding back with her huge, soaring contralto.
During a breakdown towards the end, her voice becomes animalistic, almost out of control. She roars and heaves with emotion. It’s mesmerising, but it also tends towards overdoing it. She returns later to whisper the title, and the contrast renders it all a little bit too theatrical.
Shrugging off inhibitions with such wild outbursts are a recurring theme. On Indies or Paradise, her vibrato is shown off in sustained stretches before the incongruous, detonating distortion of a guitar solo cuts through. The juxtaposition of major and minor keys is off-putting, like Calvi hasn’t decided which side of Paradise she wants to land yet.
Swimming Pool reaches full musical theatre by introducing a string section, and on Wish Calvi creates an expansive landscape with synths, more strings, her vocal, and a whole lot of reverb that melts the whole thing into one dreamy cloud of sound. It then dissolves into a classic guitar, bass and drums structure, a bit like that part in the musical when good finally prevails over evil.
Effectively, that’s what ‘Hunter’ does as a whole. The evil is the manner in which society tells men to be hunters and women that they should be preyed upon. The good is the overthrowing of feminine or masculine tropes, and encouraging people to do what feels right for them. Calvi gets her point across, but often it’s tied up in an art-pop exhibition of excess.
Anna Calvi Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu September 27 2018 - BELFAST Empire Music Hall
Fri September 28 2018 - DUBLIN Tivoli Theatre
Sun September 30 2018 - GLASGOW St Lukes
Mon October 01 2018 - MANCHESTER O2 Ritz
Wed October 03 2018 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Boiler Shop
Thu October 04 2018 - BIRMINGHAM Birmingham Town Hall
Fri October 05 2018 - BRIGHTON All Saint's Church
Sat October 06 2018 - BRISTOL SWX Bristol
Thu February 07 2019 - LONDON Roundhouse
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