Since 2016, Manchester-based trio Calva Louise delights us with a genre-defying and unique sound somewhere between garage punk and electropop. The band’s new song Trial is not an exception. It’s a highly energetic and stunning adventure, sonically and visually, with a catchy and repetitive hook, running on a beach through a storm of lightning and meteorites, an anthemic chorus and the decision between ‘restarting’ or ‘quitting’. The video protagonist’s progress – from “carefree and fearless” to realizing “that she is inside a human-scale video game” to deciding whether or not to break out of that “sordid game” – and the song are strongly inspired by Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, in which a man is arrested, brought to trial and executed without knowing his crime. Calva Louise turn this gloomy topic into empowering lyrics with a refreshing sound, which is very good – especially right now.