SEARCHING....Helium Angel - Early Clue To The New Direction (1998)

I learned about Helium Angel many years ago, around 1999, maybe through mp3.com (when this web offered free songs) while searching Billy Bragg covers... I found Accident Waiting to Happen and a few more songs (18), little information about the band and a desire to get more (teehee). This is the reason why Helium Angel appears on this post: "Searching" ......... but now I can give you the fifteen songs from Early Clue To The New Direction plus eight more (some appear in recops like International Pop Overthrow vol 2 (December Song), vol 5 (Enjoy The Gravity), Pop Under The Surface vol 4 (Shakespeare)....).

Review from popmatters.com :

I get CDs all the time from unsigned bands who have pooled all their resources to put out their own records. Most of the time, the results are quite predictable—poor sound and material that needs more work. So imagine my surprise when the opening chords of “The Crowd Appears” came blasting out of my stereo, and I suddenly felt a bit like the way those lucky punters must have felt standing around the beer-sodden pubs of 1977 London listening to a young Woking band, who married soulful mod pop to punk fury—The Jam.

Helium Angel are a young mod band from San Francisco, so correctly mod in fact, that they thank their local Vespa Club and their scooter suppliers in the liner notes. The influences are all right too—The Jam, The Who, The Small Faces. But like the Small Faces before them, Helium Angel clearly dig psychedelia too, though theirs seem to come mainly from the Byrd’s “Eight Miles High” school.

As the album wears on, you realize there’s not a lot of fury here, but then Helium Angel aren’t playing in the shadow of Thatcherism and the Sex Pistols either. There is plenty of self-assured, catchy and crunchy power pop (yes, crunchy can be good), played with the confidence and ability only earned through generous amounts of practice, live playing and, dammit, heart. The punkiest song on the block is “When the Plane Touched Down,” about equal parts Who and Buzzcocks. Here and there, Keith Moon-style drums surface, but then so do Beatlesque harmonies, and a slashing Pete Townshend-ish rhythm guitar. I bet these guys have done a few windmills on their guitars—at least in front of their mirrors. It all adds up to an exciting debut, that while it could use a bit more variety, clearly sets them up for a killer effort next
time.
By PopMatters Staff

More info: iconofan .

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Aunque esta sección (SEARCHING....) se refiere normalmente a búsquedas incompletas de grupos en la web, casi siempre suelo ofrecer un álbum completo a pesar de estar formado por canciones de diversa procedencia. Este es el caso de este grupo de Santa Bárbara, California (aunque es cierto que siguieron en NY y acabaron en San Francisco), grupo que descubrí allá por 1999 puede que buscando versiones de temas de Billy Bragg (me van las versiones, tengo algún Giga en mp3...) encontrando su "Accident Waiting To Happen", pero habiendo escuchado el tema "The Crowd Appears" me hizo pensar que algo me sonaba a "mod".... pues bueno, no me equivoqué, así que Helium Angel se unió a la lista de SEARCHING.
Reconozco que hasta ayer mismo no había conseguido recomponer su álbum "Early Clue To The New Direction", lo cual me alegró el día.

Como comentario tonto veo que los tres últimos post han aparecido en fecha 13. Buen número.

Poca información en la red, salvo lo comentado arriba y en iconofan que hay una especie de biografía.....