The Helio Sequence Bequeath Hits at Horseshoe Tavern

Writhing in unexpected abdominal agony. Paranoia from abounding, multiple-voiced shrieking. Being speed-of-sound shot into a field of ferocious chrysanthemums and frenetic Criss Angel stunts. All of these things are completely and immeasurably opposite of The Helio Sequence experience. And experience – in life, in concert, in technicolour amazement – cannot prepare you for the staggeringly and stags-roam-free brilliance of two amazing musicians: lead singer/guitarist Brandon Summers and Drum-fill decathlete Benjamin Weikel.

From the first notes of the heart-wrenching lullaby of a lament, “Lately”, legalities become obsolete and like a leopard’s luminous eyes, you are drawn in, shocked and oblivious to the pounce. Questioning your whereabouts and forgetting your name, you are held prisoner during “The Captive Mind” by a clairvoyant call to arms, and as “you tried to leave the past behind,” the band catches those likely to “come back again.” Come back again?! You could never leave. Not as the unrelenting, never-mind-rent-is-pricey drumming of Sir Weikel continues to decimate your ears with eagle-like precision, inhuman energy, and masterful technique. And yes, I just knighted Ben Weikel, and no, I can’t really do that seeing as how I’m neither British, nor the Queen (props Queen E II), but she’s been informed – and she can’t deny it.

At this point, the music marches on, and dazed by a deliberate dare, your lips level apart in time and you gaze upward at 45 degrees and sing 45 pleas of “Hallelujah, we don’t want answers anyway.” Answers are irrelevant and time’s laced with merriment as the music loops and magnifies that a defiant act is defined here and now. I hear a POW. I feel a BLUDGEON – filled with hope, I cope with transcendence in its purest form. The artistic process is winning; the muck and drudgery are spinning – so far into the ground it becomes untraceable to hounds.

Transitioning, I learn to keep my eyes ahead and fall to familiar sounds; The Helio Sequence coming on like you knew they would, but I’m still ill-prepared to deal with the resulting machinations of such a propulsive illusion.

Was it illusion? Was it ethereal? Was it destined? It was cohesion. It was relevance. It happened. It had to…

To isolate “Lately”, “The Captive Mind”, “Hallelujah”, and “Keep Your Eyes Ahead” as the sole standouts of the experience may be accurate, however unfair to the front-to-back magnificence of the rest of the set. “Can’t Say No”, “Shed Your Love”, and “Everyone Knows Everyone” also provided pressurized, pungent whiffs of awesomeness while introducing a Helio Sequence neophyte to some (hidden) gems.

At their core, The Helio Sequence are a band with a seductive spirit, an attention to lyrical detail and song-after-cot-damn song of explosive possibilities. And oh yeah, the singer, Brandon, is knucking-futsish in his tone and delivery while Sir Weikel holds his sticks with a grit so beguiling you’d attest that he’s wiling. He infuses the songs with such a manic detail that they seem alive before inception, as if they were conceived during a fit conniption of a prodigious kind.

Like eating angel cake with Hades, The Helio Sequence are a true confluence of the exponentially unexpected. Sermon: served. Choir: preached to. We all said Hallelujah!

(Originally published May 29th, 2008 on the MuchMusic website)

Top 50 Songs of 2008 (10-1)

10. Mates of State – My Only Offer

The most immediate song on their incredibly strong record, Re-Arrange Us, this married duo have melodies so potent, the antidote needs to be within grasping distance at all times. Wait…there is no antidote. Oh well, death would be welcome if only it sounded this good. They are cohesive to such a high degree that it is rather confounding. Patently special in every sense of the word.

9. The Waking Eyes – All Empires Fall

Straight from Rusty’s mouth, this was the easiest song on the record to write for them. That is damn well astonishing considering it is condensed awesomeness. Three chords or not, this is the sound of a band saying ‘we have arrived, may we have your attention now.’

8. The Republic Tigers – Give Arm to Its Socket

The sound of a world in disarray as it slowly, strangely and softly goes to sleep. The sound of accountability. The sound of a band that don’t even know their own strength. The sound of “C4 in my hand, and I’m ready to show you what for.” Aptly, the sound of this planet in this exact space and time. The sound of poignancy. The sound of breathlessness.

7. Mates of State – Blue & Gold Print

I awake, thinking of her. She’s not beside me, but her space is warm. I get up and stumble as I gain consciousness. I make my way over to the kids’ room and they’re still asleep. The house seems strangely empty. I go downstairs and peruse the family room. Nothing has stirred. As I enter the kitchen, I see a note on the centre counter. The window is open a tad and a gust of wind violently hits the glass, causing me to flinch. I stare at the note and my stomach turns with nausea. It can’t be. Not after all this time. Not after…everything. With trudging feet, I move toward the counter and pick up the note. A multitude of emotions pour in waves over my mind as I unfurl the note. It says…I awake, and she’s beside me, it was only a dream. I kiss her gently, and thankful, I return to sleep.

6. The Wombats – Moving to New York

The air drum song of the year. The big city ode of the year. The perfect guide to love, loss and desperation. Perfect. Just perfect.

5. The Airborne Toxic Event –  Sometime Around Midnight

The intro. Those magical strings. The relatable lyrics. The vocal timbre fluctuation. “You just have to see her.” The strings coming full circle at the end. The quintessential pop tune. For a first effort, well bloody done LA lads.

4. Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker (USS) – Hollow Point Sniper Hyperbole

Most apeshit band name, song title, and musical construction of the year, hands down. Quite possibly the freshest tune of the year. Never got old–after months, and months, and months. Stunningly dramatic. The sound of mixing every energy drink imaginable whilst snorting rockets (the candy) and trying to do the foot speed drill they would have you do at an NFL combine or training camp. Just a wickedly delicious, strange, hypnotic, wonderful song that laughs–no, cackles–in the face of any attempt at classification.

3. MGMT – Time to Pretend

Speaking of apeshit crazy, this one comes damn close to taking the title from USS. It’s too much of a flat-out poptastic marvel to do so though. The soundtrack to my life for the first few months of 2008. This is the kind of song that makes you thankful to love music and to have the ability to hear. Like the Killers did in 2004 with “Mr. Brightside”, this is the kind of track that changes things in the musical landscape and makes bands try excruciatingly hard to copy the sound/style. It’s a fruitless endeavour however, because while others are trying painstakingly hard to copy, these guys are just playing around like kids without a worry in the world. From and sounding like multi-dimensional beings, MGMT have barely touched down to earth, a frighteningly delicious proposition indeed.

1a & 1b – The Killers – Human/The Helio Sequence – Hallelujah

I couldn’t do it. I’ve slept on it for days and those days have turned into weeks, and I’m still wrestling with the choice. I’m copping out and I don’t mind. Neither one of these tunes deserves to be second and neither deserves to be ahead of the other. They both exploded into the stratosphere for different reasons.

“Human” is the beast, and though it took a few listens for me to get into (as the best ones usually do), it soon became my precious and I was like a giddy little school girl telling as many people as I could how much I loved this song. They didn’t need my help being one of the biggest bands on the planet, but I didn’t care, this song made me gush like a geyser of the gargantuan kind. A pure stroke of genius. Around the time of their album’s release, I read somewhere that somebody thought this was their best single to date–whoa, whoa, what a second here. We’re talking about a band that has released “Mr. Brightside”, “All These Things That I’ve Done”, “Smile Like You Mean It”, “When You Were Young”, and “Read My Mind”, songs that will go down in the pantheon of great pop ditties, and especially for this generation, songs that galvanized an otherwise apathetic youth into a feverish foot stomp. But once I mulled the proposition over for a short while, there was no way I could disagree with the sentiment. They re-affirmed my affinity for them as hit making supernovas who are poised to be this generations U2 (apologies to Coldplay and Foo Fighters–great though you are: a) your catalogue isn’t as strong, and b) you haven’t shown the whimsical disregard for common sense needed to write hits that are that different from one another musically and that polarize the shit out of people. Props must go to the Thin White Duke for helping them regain their swagger in the most musically stunning way possible.

“Hallelujah” is the beauty, an immediate masterstroke that somehow retains the qualities of a song that grows and grows, and seems to lay still as you admire its beauty–then it grows some more, and some more, and becomes the most graceful piece of wonder you could have ever imagined. To borrow from our French friends, if “Human” is the piece de resistance (accents unavailable) of the musical scene this year, “Hallelujah” is the coup d’etat, the piece of art that climbed past and above all obstacles on its way to gain power–just and fair power. This song doesn’t set its sights on egomaniacal, illusions of grandeur-esque power of one or few, rather its goals rest in egalitarian, ethereal celebration to the heavens. It is an Indie-hymn of the purest kind. And all from a TWO PERSON BAND! The drummer is one of the best in any genre, hands down. Live, he is manic and hypnotic. The vocals mesh perfectly with the music. The pulse of the song is a force belying description. The celebration (music in the 2nd part of the song) just keeps going and going and going in such a captivating way. Indecipherable synths/vocals spread charm like hot butter over the latter half of the tune. This song is a mantra I can live by forever.

Another year of music has come and gone – has come and changed. Bringing love in its natural form to all Humans, we all said Hallelujah, we don’t want answers..we want…more.

(written in 2008)