Helvetia    

Headless Machine of the Heart

The Static Cult 

 
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 With their new album, Headless Machine of the Heart, Helvetia returns as the prodigal sons of a lo-fi philosophy that defined so many 1990s indie rock heroes.  Front-man Jason Albertini (formerly of Duster) recorded the album in his Seattle home, armed only with his wits and a handful of analog instruments.  The result is a record less polished than their previous effort, The Acrobats, but in many ways more spirited.

All the elements signature to their sound remain intact.  Guitar melodies, however unobtrusive, are articulated with purpose and finesse, and the tunes are layered with angular bass lines, minimalist organs, and driving, recursive rhythms.  But the overarching characteristic of the album is a lingering sadness that finds its way into each phrasing and plants itself firmly inside the heart of each song.

The opening track “Triple Zero” sets a dismal tone as it swells with a measured suspense, only to be followed up by “Fiction”, the disturbing account of someone discovering the scene of a suicide.

Helvetia’s songs are fragments of dark matter that bloom briefly from the static and quickly dissipate back into the swirling void.  The album as a whole is the stuff of Greek tragedy, a balancing act between darkness and light, suffering and salvation.  It proceeds with a sound that reaches for the cosmos but is ultimately bound to Earth by an elegant despair.

There are allusions to Yo La Tengo in their droning keyboards just as there are echoes of earlier space-rock incarnations like Mercury Rev on the track “Broken Bones”, while the dissonant melodies of Do Make Say Think infiltrate the stunning “Incestuous Future Fable”.  But Albertini is ultimately the architect of a sonic landscape that is entirely his own. 

Electronic wizardry has been traded in for the more unassuming magic of analog effects, along with the gleeful presence of kazoos and steel guitars, creating a kind of retro-futuristic vibe that permeates the album.  And Albertini’s vocals are as haunting as ever, as he seems to call out to us from another dimension.

For all its grief and gloom, Headless Machine of the Heart is an album with rare therapeutic qualities.  If you can make it all the way through, the same music that exposes your injuries just might help you nurse your wounds.


-J Braxton Cooper