Leading us head-on through interstellar zones of psychotropic-topography, Helicon ensures a successful lift-off to a promising night of psych.
Despite stiff competition, the band has found a niche of their own, a particularly captivating and memorable fractal in the sprawling mandala of Glasgow’s healthy and heavily laden canon of cosmic music.
The key for Helicon seems to be disciplined chaos, a swirling protean drone-ooze draws you in for three or four minutes, before giving way to dizzying triple-time rock riffs, throbbing Krautrock propulsion, ambient serenity, or triumphant shoegaze sway-alongs.
Some psych bands focus on the art of the 30-minute-mantra, the endless tantric orgasm.
Helicon keep up the ecstasy, but take you through a veritable Kama Sutra of varied positions.
The Warlocks are undisputed legends, no doubt, sharing the Mt. Olympus of modern (and classic) psych rock that is California with the likes of Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sleepy Sun, Dead Meadow and oh so many others.
This makes the following heresy all the more difficult for me, but I am sworn by the sacred code of reviewers to give my honest opinion, and my opinion is that tonight, The Warlocks sound like a monotone bass-heavy musicless mush.
I get the ‘wall of sound’ thing – MBV at the Barras last year was amazing, life affirming.
Even in a small venue, noisiness can be ultimate goodness and in the right setting, bass-heavy mush is wonderful, as any doom-head will tell you, but this, this is like someone’s taken a bunch of Warlocks songs, turned down every EQ setting but bass and cranked the volume into the red.
Maybe it is the venue, maybe it is the PA, I’m not going to point fingers, but I know what my ears heard and they were not impressed.
Listen to The Warlocks’ albums, I don’t think they’ve made a bad one yet, but in the live setting in wee echoey basements, proceed with caution.
Words: C. R. Sanderson
Photos: Patrick Phillips
