Helen

Among a newfound swell of shoegaze, long-running Northwest outfit Helen returns to ride their own particular currents in the torrent of haze. Featuring Liz Harris of Grouper, Scott Simmons of Eat Skull, and Jed Bindeman of Eternal Tapestry, the band doesn’t come with light boniifides. Yet, the band’s more experimental past enters lightly into the world of Helen. There’s a pop heart buried beneath the bluster; a sweetly stung dream that’s been swaddled in layers and layers of cottony cacophony. Caught in the swim and sway of seaside imagery, the record is enamored with the feeling of being adrift. It is besieged by storm, hassled by harbingers, unmoored and waiting for the waves to set the course. It’s a nice mirror to the political and social battering that takes place daily. The loss of control, the overwhelming rise all around us, the predators among the depths; they’re all there in Linda’s Head. 

The band looks to the corroded croppings of the Kiwi past for some inspiration. Pumice and Roy Montgomery seem just as apt comparisons as Opal or Eccsame-era Lilys. Here, some of Harris’ past seeps in as well, sweeping the jangles of “Dead Shark” and its sequel into dusted corners. The album’s slow, methodical pace tugs at its urge to spill over into pop. There are some light moments, but it’s when the riptide pulls the band under the water that the record finds it’s most potent grace. It’s been almost a decade since Helen last hit the speakers, but the time was well spent readying a collection of quiet devastation to accompany our own tumble under the tides.

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