Helen Kelter Skelter
Helen Kelter Skelter
(Self-Released)
B-
Helen Kelter Skelter is playing Dr. Frankenstein. It makes sense — a trippy rock band subverting expectations with the compositions it creates as much as the warbled guitar pedals and studio effects it experiments with to play games with your mind. On the surface, from the song titles to album artwork, the first impression is a band eager to capitalize on the movement to which Tame Impala opened the masses. But this is something (pleasantly) different, taking cues from a broader swath of influences not limited to the acid-birthed sound of the late ’60s and ’70s. Pixels of simmered rock ‘n’ roll, scorched spaghetti Westerns, humble folk and playfully psychedelic pop spray across the screen in spots they maybe shouldn’t (or at least where you wouldn’t expect), but at least it’s trying to stretch its legs into something of its own. Willfully glitchy in that way, the album either got a scattershot personality or one that fetishizes the loose cannon nature of a fragmented identity. Each seems as likely as the other as this slow-drip LSD adventure winds across an eroding Oklahoma backdrop ravaged by the sun — dusty trails in one moment, scorched plains in another, and a dimension away the next.
The opening duo of “Lonesome Traveler” and “Some Tight Rope” work quickly to establish a unique framework for the Norman five-piece relative to their psych rock brethren; Woody Guthrie is as relevant as 13th Floor Elevators here, a whirling drain of worlds old and older made new by splashing them together. It’s an interesting pair to introduce the LP; these are the sort of comfortably ambling, fever-dreaming anthems you’d expect to usher out the affair instead of open it. “Wish List” becomes the actual opening to that little prelude, and in its assured conversion from crunchy Rubber Factory indie rock to ethereal comet-shower stargazing and back again is sterling and bold. When taking in the relative dearth of honest-to-God rock bands Oklahoma has produced in the past decade, it instantly becomes one of the better rock songs the state has birthed in recent memory. The swirling maelstrom of “Helousia” follows, floating like a smoke ring at its conception but quickly seized by a vintage Muse guitar riff — part arena rock, part prog — that zips and zags at its vacant center. It’s masterful in knowing when to build and when to bow — a cocky-as-shit five minutes of crowd hypnotism building to a thudding, psych metal encore.
“You’ll Get Your Money Back” satisfies the pounding, Queens of the Stone Age benchmark like a Songs for the Deaf B-side, even if it is guided along an already well-established lane of head banging. Brit-shore storming “Carmelita” plays homage to Arctic Monkeys (who were playing homage to Led Zeppelin for them). Bastardized and familiar, yes, but a peppy step keeps the tribute from feeling all that trodden. “Great Big Shining Hand” has a tighter grip on this whole revival thing, capturing the same sort of bouncy hook — there’s a nice, subtle groove throughout the album, really — but reigning it into something at least a bit more exclusive to Helen Kelter Skelter.
The back nine is a bit more muddled than its opening half. The jazz-indebted “Is Something Wrong Here” feels out of step with the rest, and the breezy “Heart Attack” bleeds into ’90s alt-rock anonymity. “I was There, But Now I’m Gone” brings the affair to a close as the same late night/early morning amble to the hot and bothered opening desert dirges, collapsing into a sweaty pool of exhaustion that feels thoroughly earned of a graveyard digging. Helen Kelter Skelter found the parts that work for the monster they are creating, and with a little more time to suture and sew it all together, it’ll be rather beastly, indeed.
