Helicon ft Al Lover: Arise
LP | CD | DL
Out now
Glasgow underground psych-rockers Helicon team up with L.A. DJ/producer Al Lover to release an album that layers in trip-hop beats through the band’s deep psych sound. The result is one of mesmerising glory.
It sets out the stall right from the off, on the album title track. The song shifts through magic-eye depth, drawing you in through a myriad of sounds, each one layered over the last to create a zoopraxiscopic hypnosis. The beats roll underneath as sitars writhe over and through, interlacing themselves between a cascading rhythm, one that threatens to be enveloped by the sheer density of the guitars that surge constantly throughout. As an opening statement of Arise, Helicon build a truly majestic introduction.
Having worked on over twenty tracks with L.A. DJ/producer Al Lover, the songs slowly fleshed out as they criss-crossed across the Atlantic, the nine-piece finally went into the studio with Lover in Glasgow with Tony Doogan (Mogwai, The Jesus & Mary Chain) to lay down the album, nine of those original demos making the final cut. As the final bars of Arise give way to the sweet Eastern groove of Backbreaker, that collaboration comes into full force. This is a song that should be filling dancefloors around the globe, trippy and entrancing, it pulses with communion, of coming together to block out the outside.
“Love breaks your back, love feels like a heart attack,” sings frontman John-Paul Hughes, and it is that feeling of love that must confront the madness. On the album, Hughes states that it “confronts a culture of individualism at the mercy of opportunistic grifters … offering a reminder that empathy, compassion, and authenticity are still choices.” Amen.
And thus the album continues, through waves of uplifting psych. There are moments of pure euphoria, such as the final crescendo of instrumental track Tabula Rasa, which rises into a barely restrained chaos before they drop into Not A Thought, loose and smouldering through a fantastic winding guitar line. The band are chanelling a host of influences, back to the desert-psych of the Elevators, through the groove of Primal Scream and pulling in the intensity of bands like The Black Angels. The result is a fervour that stands on a precipice, looks you in the eye, and threatens to devour you.
When they sit back off the intensity, such as on It Won’t Stop, they allow Lover’s beats to shimmer through more, the moment a respite, holding you by a delicate thread. It is one that seeps neatly into the wonderful Adjust The Dosage. We are suspended, gazing down on the world below as we glide, the hand of Jason Pierce guiding us through as the song glistens and flares.
The Eastern-psych influence shines out throughout the whole album, be it through the wonderful sitar work that is littered across many of the songs or the groove of songs like We Don’t Belong. Built over a constant beat and rising-falling bassline, the song pulsates from within while still sounding ethereal, leading us into the pure chill-out of Midnight Mass, and finally, album closer Goodbye Cool World. Here, the piano of Chris Geddes (of Belle and Sebastian) provides one final refrain of balance with Hughes reminding us, “It’s beautiful, it’s gone,” or “It’s beautiful it’s gone.” That comma, there or not, leaves the final line open to the listener’s interpretation, a reminder that in our overloaded world, we should take the time to truly listen. Passivity is not an option.
UPCOMING HELICON LIVE SHOWS
26/02/06 – Sheffield, UK @ Sidney & Matilda
27/02/26 – Manchester, UK @ The Deaf Institute
25/04/26 – Leek, UK @ Foxlowe Arts Centre
01,02/05 – Eindhoven (NL), Fuzz Club Festival
More 2026 UK/EU album tour dates to be announced
Arise is available direct from Fuzz Club via their website or Bandcamp.
Helicon: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | TikTok | YouTube
Al Lover: Website | Facebook | Instagram
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Words by Nathan Whittle. Find his Louder Than War archive here.
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