This is a spin off of our "Where to Start" series! In this feature we provide an overview on the obscure and relatively known acts with less than five albums. In other words, in this guide we go through a band's discography album by album, telling you our thoughts on each record as well as giving insight into the band themselves and why we recommend them for your listening pleasure.
The origins of Helium began under the name Chupa in 1992 featuring vocalist/guitarist Mary Lou Lord, guitarist Jason Hatfield, drummer Shawn King Devlin and bassist Brian Dunton. Lord and Hatfield would eventually leave due to creative differences, leading to Mary Timony taking the former’s place. And so, Helium was born! However, the foundations for this underrated alt rock outfit weren’t solidified until Dunton’s departure after their promising debut EP, ‘Pirate Prude’. With the addition of Polvo member Ash Bowie, Helium’s core creative line up was now in tact. From then until 1997, this Boston trio released a captivatingly small discography, a collection of which is often overlooked and forgotten about.
For some, discovering this group is a diamond in the coal scenario. This was the case for Doe drummer/vocalist Jake Popyura. “The first time I heard ‘The Magic City’ [Helium’s second LP] was rather special,” he recounts. “I felt pretty disenfranchised with all music at the time, and although it sounds dramatic, opening track ‘Vibrations’ encapsulated everything that I was searching for.” Such an impression would eventually lead Popyura to the band’s 1995 debut, ‘The Dirt of Luck’. As well as becoming one of his favourite records, Popyura describes album opener ‘Pat’s Trick’ as “being instrumental in Doe’s formation”.
With such high praise, what was it that made Helium a unique find? To understand this, Popyura guides us through their overall craft and skills as musicians. “Mary Timony just oozes all kinds of cool and her playing is so inventive, Ash Bowie’s bass chords and harmonics manage to occupy valuable space without being at all overbearing, and until I heard Shawn King Devlin’s hypnotic four-on-the-floor kick drum patterns, I never knew drumming could be so unapologetically understated.” Admittedly, such contributions provided by each member resulted in a weird, fragile and deadly form of off kilter pop rooted indie rock. A style of which gives us every reason to delve into this undeservedly forgotten and captivating trio. “I love everything Mary Timony has done since,” states Popyura, “but it was Helium that made her a hero of mine and provided a vital reference for Nicola and I when we started our band.”
‘The Dirt of Luck’
“I’m small like a superball, throw me at the wall. I’m fragile like an eggshell, I’m mad as hell.” Taken from the album’s lead single ‘Superball’, this chorus sums up the very nature of ‘The Dirt of Luck’ as a whole. There is a duality at play, both musically and lyrically, wherein the band craft a fully fleshed out being with strengths and weaknesses. Sludge pop opener ‘Pat’s Trick’ sees the trio convey a weary frame of mind, yet there is a fierceness to it. This is what helps to make Helium’s 1995 debut full length an intriguing listen.
In addition to this, Helium expanded on the weirdly distorted and twisted pop established on debut EP ‘Pirate Prude’ into an usual marvel in alt rock artistry. The aforementioned ‘Superball’ has a straightforward core wrapped around offbeat punk delivery, whilst ‘Silver Angel’ starts with mesmerising notes which rumblingly curl once the verse shifts into the chorus. Such brushstrokes taken from the band’s palette prevent boredom from ever creeping in, thus keeping the listener on their attentive toes. This is particularly evident on the eerie piano interlude, ‘Comet #9’ , and the chilling blues tinted ‘Medusa’, a track where all the instruments take up a hollow space that goes right through you.
As a whole, ‘The Dirt of Luck’ is a one of a kind underrated gem in its respective genre. Thematically, the band introspectively disclose an atmosphere that is both pessimistically vulnerable and optimistically tenacious. The music they’ve crafted to accommodate this tone consistently keeps your attention for every waking second. Such songs, like the dream pop-esqe ‘Baby’s Going Underground’, the woefully strong ‘Honeycomb’, the rumbling twang in ‘Trixie’s Star’, and the strained intricacies of ‘Skeleton’, excellently back this point to the letter.
‘The Magic City’
In a 1997 interview with MTV, Timony described the follow up to their debut album, ‘The Magic City’, as a record rooted in escapism, seeing the band enter a “different mental space”. Based on the lyrical use of otherworldly and astrological imagery on tracks like ‘Vibrations’ and ‘Cosmic Rays’, you certainly get that sense. On this final album, the Boston trio managed to pull off combining their usual introspective indie rock antics with 70s influenced prog pop. This style, along with the aforementioned themes, managed to create a colourful journey throughout ‘The Magic City”s runtime.
To expand this palette, the band utilised an array of instruments to bolster and support the scope delivered Timony’s innovative guitar, Bowie’s humble bass and Devlin’s subdued drum work. From the sitar led psychedelics in ‘Lady of the Fire’ to the whimsical orchestration on ‘Aging Astronauts’, as well as the steady cloud boat, violin backed rocker that is ‘Leon’s Space Song’, Helium’s musical ambition here is a marvel to admire.
Generally speaking, ‘The Magic City’ channels you through a stead fast, kaleidoscopic wormhole. As an album, it shows a band who wanted to expand on their skills from previous releases into something you can paint the sky with. The seven minute epic that is ‘The Revolution of Hearts, Pts. I & II’ testifies to such a goal. Yet while some could admire this, it may go over the heads of a small few, especially since it only ever so slightly doesn’t reach the trio’s masterful debut. One does get a sense that if the band did follow up this record with a third, then perhaps Helium would’ve had a chance to fine tune such ideas further. Regardless, ‘The Magic City’ is a very good record, thus making it a worthy enough send off to an underrated gem of a band.
On the whole, Helium were one of those bands that, as mentioned throughout this piece, gets completely overlooked in their respective genre. They rooted themselves in an innovative oddity of indie rock that was both frail and powerful at the same time. Throughout their career, the trio produced two consistently mesmerising albums, as well as a few EPs, which potentially should attract one’s interest, especially if they’re in a state of disenfranchisement.