CD Review: Helion Magister, Vaquero - Page 2

"Chick-A-Boom Baby" is driven by gutty bass, clanging guitar, banjo, and smokehouse harmonica (all played by Miner). It's eight minutes long, with the structure of a song - lyrics, verses, and so on - but it fits no genre, nor does it need to. In this song it's possible to forget the long tail, the baggage, the history. It's just pure crazy original fun.

The Tejano-bluesy "Rock And Roll Is" closes out the psychedelic-rock section of the CD with Miner cawing "Rock and roll can still relieve your sorrow," proving his own point. (Hey, it's relieving my sorrow even now!) It sounds like Los Lobos if their instruments got wet and started shorting out but they kept playing.

Then come three songs that comprise a noise-rock sonata full of goofy raps, screeching sounds and funny voices: Spongebob Squarepants meets Captain Beefheart in a bowl of Green Jelly. There's seems to be some kind of story about a highly disturbed married couple running through the three songs, but who cares when the third movement is called "Jello Butt." The CD closes with a slow, entirely unclassifiable nine-minute opus mixing Jacques Brel, flamenco, Steve Hackett and some rather impressive multi-part madrigal singing.

Short but representative clips of all the songs are available at the Helion Magister Web site. If you are a fan of psychedelic music, or stuff that's just "out there," or what Miner curiously refers to as "good old rock and roll" - it's worth a click.

And leave your baggage at home.

Article Author: Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Blogcritics' Culture and Theater Editor. In addition to reviewing NYC theater, he writes a semi-regular round-up of independent music releases. By day he is a computer professional and a freelance writer and editor, and at night he's a …

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