Young Effectuals is less immediate than Com Plex, lacking great, catchy moments like “Just Mary Jane” and “Transistor Radio,” but it’s just as strong. While shoegazing is definitely part of the band’s DNA, their sound has many other aspects. (For the record, though, it still pales next to the original.)īy the time of their second album, Summers and Weikel were pegged as part of a shoegazer revival along with bands such as Charlene and Ester Drang. The rest of the album varies these two templates, including the only cover version of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” worth the time it took to record. The anthemic “Transistor Radio” would be a Top 40 hit if there were enough radio stations prepared to play a song that sounds like the Church filtered through My Bloody Valentine. “Just Mary Jane (Calypso)” follows with an equally bent but sunnier pop vibe. Halfway through the song it all clicks into a lockstep groove that goes on longer than it has any business to but still nowhere long enough - the effect is head-spinning and hypnotic. While the pair have common ground with contemporary space rockers like Flying Saucer Attack and Windy & Carl, the Helio Sequence almost always anchor their flights into the cosmos on accessible - nearly bubblegum - pop music.Ĭom Plex gets off to a strong start with the pulsing drone of “Stracenska 612,” in which a repetitive keyboard figure forms a base for an equally repetitive guitar riff over which all manner of feedback, keyboard blips, subliminal vocal chatter are laid, topped off with pleasantly melodic lead vocal.
#Best helio sequence songs full
That the sounds on Com Plex were generated entirely by relative youngsters Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel is quite a feat - many full bands would struggle to create music this intricate.
Either way, your best bet is to stick to the first two records and hope they can recapture some of their initial spark in the future.Com Plex, the first album from Portland’s Helio Sequence, is an impressive affair, a swirling, heavily layered slice of space rock which draws on the entire history of psychedelia, from the Beatles through krautrock to shoegazing and ambient techno. If you want to be charitable, chalk it up as a holding pattern on the way to something better, maybe even a "grower." If not, call it the death knell of the Helio Sequence. Not as innovative as the Flaming Lips, say, but certainly better than South or Elbow. Maybe to a fresh set of ears, Love and Distance might sound like an interesting take on the whole modern Radiohead-y guitar rock with electronics thing. Perhaps the palpable sense of disappointment here comes from loving the band's first two records so much. Not exactly what the Helio Sequence used to do but better than bland. The only song that really makes much of an impression is the closing "Looks Good (But You Looked Away)." It's the kind of cosmic country that Beachwood Sparks do so well, with a very nice laid-back, outer space feel. The music all just washes past it's the kind of record you can sit through and at the finish not remember a thing about it. It must be something about the plaintive voice and ponderous tempos, the Stones guitar riffing, the bluesy feel of songs like "People of the Secret." Growing up doesn't have to mean growing bland, but it seems to be what happened to the Helio Sequence. Parts of the album are even reminiscent of the Stone Roses' bloated Second Coming fiasco. Instead of sounding like the teenage spawn of My Bloody Valentine and Mouse on Mars, now they sound like Radiohead's very earnest cousin. The tempos drag, the lyrics are nothing special, the electronics nothing much to care about. The guitars no longer howl and crash about they are layered carefully and applied cautiously. Instead of dreamily floating along with the waves of noise, now Brandon Summers grittily shouts over the top. It is still fairly loud, dreamy rock, but the wall of sound has been pared way back and the vocals have been brought to the forefront. Their third album, Love and Distance, is not exciting, not very melodic, and quite mature. The Helio Sequence's first two albums were dense, exciting blasts of noise, melody, and electronic wildness that seemed to jump out of the speakers.
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