St Helens - HeavyProfession

Thu 30th Apr, 2009 in Music Reviews

There’s an urgency to this much anticipated debut release from Melbourne’s St Helens that can’t be underestimated. It stares you in the face. Leaning over you as you sleep, stroking your hair with one hand, but ready with a sharp kitchen blade in the other. Such is the intimidating darkness and pressure of Heavy Profession.

Songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Jarrod Quarrell, he of The New Season and Lost Animal, plays his dark minimalist hand at the St Helens table. He dictates terms with a beautifully lazy spoken word/pop drawl. It is interspersed with a maze of jangled guitars thanks to Lewis Boyes (formerly of Dan Kelly’s Alpha Males), and the understated vocal contribution of Spider Vomit’s Hannah Brooks.

St Helens fuses the provocative, abrasive nature of Brooks’ band on One In Seventeen, complete with its Crazy Horse wail of guitars; the psychedelia of Beaches on Positivity and the smooth pop of Panel Of Judges (Get Up).

As a loose comparison, St Helens could be imagined as Lou Reed or Jonathan Richman out front of The Pixies. Obviously it’s a big call, but not without careful consideration first given to its logic. Opening track Don’t Laugh provides a nice reference here, with its crunchy twang and swirling effects that get hips shaking and eyes wandering all over the place.

Oozing a sexual pop nature and an apparent religious focus ( Heavy Profession, How To Choose Your Guru Pt 2, St Luke ), there’s an anti-establishment feel of a band kicking against the pricks. It’s loose, carefree and hypnotic thanks to Quarrell’s hazy delivery and the band’s attentiveness to framing the material. It’s the sort of record that will have plenty of legs away from Australian shores; such is the universal appeal of these sinister and suave stories.

The thing about St Helens is that they aren’t just another Australian band out there on the circuit – and Christ there’s a few. What sets them apart from the mess of sounds at the moment is the good old – œit factor’. These guys have it in spades.

Heavy Profession is out now on Dot Dash through Remote Control Records.