Callière is the long-running creative outlet of British musician Andrew Rose, a project that first flickered into life in the mid-eighties with banks of synths and a restless imagination. After writing well over a hundred songs without releasing a note, the project slipped into hibernation until Slowdive’s 2014 return lit the fuse again. With an amp gifted by Christian Savill and a guitar from Nick Noble of 93MillionMilesFromTheSun, Callière slowly re-emerged, this time with a small circle of collaborators. The revival led to a steady run of releases: the 2022 debut Barcelona, an accompanying remix album, a string of singles and EPs, and three more full-length albums that sketched out Rose’s evolving world of sound.

The new album Solar marks a bold step forward. It’s a shoegaze and dream-pop record shaped by Rose’s journeys along the Camino in northern Spain, where the landscapes and the quiet rhythm of long days on foot sparked a wave of new songwriting. The influences are delightfully unpretentious and wide-ranging: the haze and heart of Slowdive and Ride, the grit of The Velvet Underground, the shimmer of Cocteau Twins, the melodic tug of The Divine Comedy, the raw edge of Tombstones In Their Eyes, and the pure indie charm of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Folded together, they form something unmistakably Callière: melodic, cinematic, glowing with movement and memory. Solar feels like a road unfolding in sound, carrying the listener through mountains, valleys and old Spanish plains with a quiet confidence that this is the strongest Callière album yet.