Famously when a band decides to call their album after themselves it means they want to begin a new chapter in their career, like Blur’s Pavement influenced late 90’s self-titled album or Duran Duran’s comeback early 90’s release . Now the psych-electronica veterans The Helio Sequence declare their new chapter in music with a self-titled album.
The Portland Oregon duo’s sixth album minimalist electro-pop has always been more friendly with the hipsters of the world than ever taking a big step into the mainstream, like if The Pet Shop Boys came from Shoreditch. “Oh, I’m looking for a new direction” sings Brandon Summers on the opening track ‘Battle Lines‘, and all the signs pre – album release pointed to a new exciting chapter in The Helio Sequence’s career. But this album is not the great departure one would have been expecting. The same cool psychedelic guitars from Summers, surf along the drums and keyboards from musical partner Benjamin Weikel. Imagine an LA skyline and a car driving over the horizon, as the camera pulls into reveal a loner in ray-bans smoking a doubie. The soundtrack would be any track from this album. This is the problem with The Helio Sequence. The tracks blend seemlessly into the next without really noticing any change in style or structure, it is more like listening to a soundtrack than a studio album. Only ‘Stoic Resemblance‘ and ‘Upwards Mobility‘ really show off the duo’s pop sensibilities, and these are the best ten tracks out of 26 demo’s written in a month as an experiment into how fast they could work. Turns out they should have maybe spent some more time on those demo’s.
As a re-introduction into the band’s career this is a fairly adequate attempt, but one would be better off investigating earlier albums like Com Plex and Young Effectuals to find the boys at their finest. After 16 years as a duo it’s amazing at how few are aware of their music. Sadly, it could be a few more years until they find their relevance.
