Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Party of Helicopters - 2003 Please Believe It


Band : The Party of Helicopters
Album : Please Believe It
Release Year : 2003
Genre : Post-Hardcore | Indie | Experimental

Tracklist :
01. The Good Punk
02. Mic My Mind
03. Cover Me
04. Delta '88
05. The Toucher
06. Rising Up Is Hard Work (Let's Just Sit Here)
07. Brutal Enigma
08. Never Ending Cycle
09. Boston
10. Science Reasons

The Party of Helicopters, from Kent, Ohio, was active from 1995 to 2004. They played melodic polyphonic punk that didn’t quite cross over into pop. Their lightning fast rhythms, insanely complex guitars, and off-kilter vocals intertwined to mount a pounding sonic assault on your skull. The band broke up in October of 2004.

The Philadelphia Weekly called this band "a great, big dangerous tangle of guitar riffs, urgent vocals and sinister melodies" - which is damn near perfect. Not to be confused with the Swedish giant of a similar name, this Kent, Ohio quartet plug-in and blaze through 10 sonic gems on their new opus “Please Believe It.” The music is gripping from the second 'The Good Punk' permeates the speakers with the crisp guitar assault of Jamie Stillman and Joe Dennis' searing vocals to the pounding of Ryan Brannon and Cory Race.

'Cover Me,' 'The Toucher' and 'Brutal Enigma' generate so much heat it's easy to see where the recent buzz on the band stems from. Since their formation in 1995, POH has logged ten tours, two drummers and a sea of fans from coast to coast. This current outing lists as the third release for the group and maintains a whirlwind of blinding intensity with dynamic sonic urgency. Dennis' higher octave vocals and his sense of melody are akin to the early '70s pop sound of the Monkeys or even Bay City Rollers but with a hammering metal-like thrust.

Well schooled in the ability to craft tightly punctuated nuggets, songs like ‘Delta 88’ and ‘Boston’ make use of Stillman’s aggressive riffing to move the songs into a mind-numbing, hypnotic swirl. Add to that layers of fused harmonies, and the sweet, pure glitz of European pop embrace the onslaught of CBGB punk. Each number resonates the same distinctive brilliance. Closing track ‘Science Reasons’ locks down a rugged edgy set of chugging rhythms that race to the twilight of an amazing set.






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