Tonight’s multi-instrumentalist support Natalie Evans cannot stay still for very long, walking between her harp, guitar and piano every couple of songs. It is a very impressive solo medley of charming, alternative folk songs. A crowd member shouts between songs – “tell a joke!”. Not to undermine her array of virtuoso musical talent, but on the off-chance that there are any doubters, that Dad joke audibly won everybody over.
I admit that I was prepared to say that it is a stark contrast with Kalandra, who have quite an introspective and sorrowful back catalogue, both delicately ambient, or raw and guitar-driven. Vocalist Katrine Stenbekk has a versatile and powerful voice and lyrics we’ve perfectly with both delicate ambience and more raw, guitar-driven songs. That was until Katrine referred to the crew member at the merch stand as “Freddie Merch-ary” (although she looked slightly pained as she said it). Everybody whoops and cheers when Katrine says that “we are going to continue down the melancholic road with a song about death”. It seems that they revel in being neither here nor there.
Kalandra @ Southampton Papillon
During the first lines of opener The Waiting Game, Katrine laments her internal struggles – “there is a fire inside me / waiting for something / burning uncontrollably / if I do nothing”. For the next ninety minutes, Kalandra intend to release that intense heat upon tonight’s audience at the renovated church venue Papillon in Southampton. The location’s modernised interior, and centuries-old exterior is appropriate for them, who pride themselves in uniting alternative rock with far northern and Celtic folklore.
However, this is not the sound of rural whimsy that terms like “folk rock” might suggest. Neither is it a Viking stampede ten-piece outfit with an orchestra of hurdy-gurdies, fiddles and penny whistles, associated with some “folk metal” acts. On a behind-the-scenes video of the current tour, Katrine herself struggles to describe the Norwegian four-piece band when discussing the costumes that they would be wearing tonight (having made them herself). She is unsure of whether was creating “timeless pieces with a modern twist… or modern pieces with a timeless twist”. While guitarist Florian Winter bows his guitar, Katrine has a keyboard within reach at all times.
The genre contrast peaks with the furious Bardaginn (which appropriately translates to ‘battle’), during which everything from thumping drums, to belted harmonised vocals, to atonal sawtooth synths are thrown in. One can imagine Kalandra as a legendary North Sea archipelago with ancient sound technology, that fell into the sea, and that this is the spectacular soundtrack of its falling. So much is going on that it reaches a point of majesty, but also almost to the point of mischief. The band might sound huge, and dress appropriately, but the performance is both fun and personal – something that the whole audience can connect with.
They decide to go through the trouble of performing songs in three different Norwegian dialects. The ghostly, humming Virkelightens Etterklang is in their native tongue, Bardaginn is in Old Norse, and Segla are in New Norse, which were written with help of a professor. Katrine explains her desire to write a song in “this beautiful language”, realising its potential artistic use, and conducting a successful experiment that required an astonishing amount of devotion. Kalandra want to perform something both intriguing and entertaining.
From start to finish, Kalandra have a clear vision of the audiovisual performance that they want to deliver, and they have a hand in just about any variable that the show can have. They definitely want to salvage everything that they can from a show that is staged by a crew of only eight people, and squeezed into the back of a van every night. Even when there is a technical hitch, guitarist Jogeir Maeland and Katrine improvise, and perform a short ambient instrumental, making an extended introduction to the song that likely only fans here tonight will ever get to hear. Had this not been explained, one could have been fooled that this hadn’t been the plan. They had no intention of leaving the audience in the dark for a moment, continuous and planned out flow of the show.
That is not to say that the show was rigid or overly choreographed. In fact, it felt quite the opposite. Katrine asks fans “are you ready for the most schizophrenic song we have ever written?”. Of course, everybody wants to hear this, and that they get with Are You Ready?. Katrine smirks, flails and skips between Florian (who she gives a brief shoulder massage) and Jogier (who gets his beard stroked), as the jagged hard-rocking structure builds to a rapid-fire trashcan drum finish. It is no wonder that Katrine explains that the song needs to unfold in her head “like a script”.
It is a jarring, but fun sudden change that keeps the atmosphere of the show feeling both epic, and like that of a tiny performance especially for lucky, adoring Kalandra competition winners, preparing for the arena show that they are due. One day, hopefully soon.
The lyrics of their single Slow Motion may have been honest when they were first written for their 2020 debut album, as Katrine sings about her aspirations, but that she she was reluctant to begin, for fear of countless failures. She was afraid that they might lead her to apathy. Tonight, Kalandra proved that that definitely was not the case anymore.
Live review of Kalandra at Papillon, Southampton on 31st May 2025 by Nick Pollard. Photography by Becca Cairns.
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