The Party of Helicopters “Please Believe It”

The Party of Helicopters
Please Believe It
Velocette

In this age of fraudulent rock music, the saviors are seemingly nowhere to be found. Instead, all that’s left are a bunch of pierced, tatted and spiked-up kids who call themselves bands and sing/rap the praises of Maiden, Zeppelin and the Misfits only to outfit their records with candy-coated, wimpy three-chord crap.

That is why the buzz around The Party of Helicopters is so exciting. The band has all the aforementioned influences, yet, are so fresh and original that its unfamiliarity only adds to the tantalizing, sheer rock of it all.

The Party of Helicopters’ fourth full-length, Please Believe It, is a picture of the band honing a new sound at full throttle and full volume.

POH’s sound is a sexy contrast of dream-pop lyrical delivery cast against sharp metal riffage unlike anything else except the remote kinship to labelmates Jucifer. It sounds as if the members of POH finished their upbeat pop/rock record only to stumble upon 40 minutes of writhing guitarism from Maiden’s Dave Murray and splice it with the original vocal tracks. But they didn’t do that at all. POH’s creation is all its own — it’s just that good.

The album opener, “The Good Punk,” kicks off with an ascending whirlwind of a riff that almost drowns out (in a good way, of course) the soft hum of lead singer Joe Dennis’ vocals as he sarcastically questions, “Who does this cowboy think he is/I probably could take him….”

“Mic My Mind” and “Cover Me” are tunes that bring out POH’s sound best and show the different directions the band’s sound can follow. The former is a light-guitared meandering that traipses into a hop-up-and-down, bouncy pop/punk chorus. “Cover Me” is a new-age homage to metaldom. Vacuously cool lyrics remind us of the oh-so-metal theme of bravery in the final hour. This song is a rolling thunder of soft howls that give way to an all-out barrage of metal riffs.

“The Toucher” is a throw-down jam with the guitars and heavy drumwork playing DJ. Dennis hollers some of the best lyrics ever delivered by a white man: “Everybody here tonight/Needs to move their asses…Everybody don’t lie/I know you want to party down … Who is rollin’ deep tonight/Hold on to me so I can/Make sure you’re being nice.” Word to your mother.

The rest of the album is filled with delectable heavy guitar work by Jamie Stillman, as he backs Dennis’ dreamy lyrics to form a dynamic sweeter than any pop/rock candy and as hard as the strongest metal.

Contact Nick Margiassoat oracletunes@yahoo.com