Did they ever leave it?
There is something in Kalandra‘s music that reaches places other songs simply do not. Their melodies can feel ancient and strangely familiar, while their darker moments have a habit of taking you somewhere you did not necessarily intend to go. Sometimes you listen. Sometimes you just sit there and let the song do whatever the hell it needs to do.
“Lost In The Dark” is very much one of those songs.
The Norwegian band have just released the second single from their forthcoming third studio album, “The Other Side“, due on 13 November 2026 through By Norse Music. The new single arrives with an official video and takes Kalandra deeper into the dreamlike, unsettling territory that has become such a distinctive part of their sound.
The lyrics paint an almost physical picture of disorientation, crawling through a dark forest, searching for something that seems impossible to find, losing sight, hearing and breath along the way. The repeated admission of being lost in the dark turns the song into something much bigger than a simple description of fear. It feels like a search for identity when the usual reference points have disappeared.
And that is precisely what the song is about.
“Lost In The Dark” was originally written and composed by Helen Morrisson, a university friend of the band who was also once a member of Kalandra, contributing as a songwriter, backing vocalist and pianist. The band have now rearranged and produced the song, bringing something from their early history back into the present.
As vocalist Katrine Stenbekk explains, the song explores self discovery, belonging and the strange paradox of searching so deeply for who we are that we can sometimes end up feeling even more lost. Kalandra say they are honoured to bring the song back to the surface and give it a new life.
That sense of searching fits beautifully with “The Other Side“.
For me, this is what makes Kalandra so special. Their music does not tell you exactly what to feel. It gives you somewhere to feel it. And somehow, they have this uncanny habit of releasing a song that arrives at exactly the right moment, a song that seems to understand what is happening inside my head before I have even found the words for it myself.
Sometimes it is something I am living through right now. Sometimes it takes me straight back to something I lived years ago. A feeling, a loss, a fear, a moment of loneliness, something I thought I had buried somewhere deep. Then a Kalandra song comes along and suddenly there it is again, sitting right in front of me.
That is what I mean when I say I can relate to their songs. It is not simply that I like them, or that I understand the lyrics. It is that their music somehow meets me where I am. Every now and then, they release a song I did not know I needed until I heard it.
“Lost In The Dark” feels like one of those songs.
