Wild Dogs With X-Ray Eyes

Album Review

Great guitar rock never goes out of style, and Helicopter Helicopter's fourth album draws on influences from all across that music's history — a Flaming Lips inflection here, a Tom Petty-ish melody there (note especially the gritty "Harsh Light"), and amiably off-kilter lyrics that occasionally recall their hometown colleagues the Lemonheads. There's nothing particularly unusual about the band's sound, which consists basically of two guitars, bass, drums, and the regular-guy twin vocals of Chris Zerby and Julie Chadwick, and yet it's immediately recognizable all the same. Maybe it's their melodic signature, which, despite the occasional whiff of earlier influences, doesn't really sound much like anyone else; on songs like the sad and luscious "Devil" and the muscular and triumphantly beautiful "Talk the Flyer Down," you'd swear you'd known the tunes all your life and yet were hearing them for the first time. There's no flashy soloing, just a sturdy meat-and-potatoes rhythm guitar attack and those two voices twining around each other sinuously and sweetly. And really, not a bad track anywhere on the album.