“Oh,” singer Brandon Summers sings on the first track, “I’m looking for a new direction. Oh, I’m looking for another way.” It feels like a dramatic statement, a powerful entrance. It gives a lot of weight to the rest of the album.
And rest assured that this is an unusual album for The Helio Sequence. With several records under their belts now, the band has dared to try something different and reconsider what it might look like to be a part of the band.
The Helio Sequence is a result of experimentation. Reportedly, the band wrote more than twenty-five songs in one month and picked ten to record. It let the duo be more free-form with their ideas and forced them to avoid being detail-oriented.
The experimentation makes the band feel refreshingly buoyant and alive. Stoic Resemblance has a spring in its step that belies the band’s age. Upward Mobility feels like danceable rock, in a weird experimental Radiohead-esque way. That song’s post-chorus guitar riff is a single note, hit repeatedly and very quickly — but with unpredictable rhythm. It feels like it sums up the album as a whole.
While The Helio Sequence is getting older, they’re daring to reinvent themselves as a more youthful, energetic band. And it pays off.
Even the album art is a nod to this new direction: the colourful, energetic sunset could also be a sunrise. Is the band running to the horizon or embracing the very edge? The answer is undoubtedly a mixture of everything.
The Helio Sequence’s self-titled record comes late, but it makes them sound young again. It’s both a great time to be a fan and a great time to listen to them for the first time.