The Helium Tapes, a powerful rock and roll trio with extensive gigging experience in the St. Louis area, go tight-rope walking with safety net and corded harness on their second and latest release, Ghost Wave, which features heavy, multifaceted rock music coloring in and out of dirgy lines. The group, who recently downsized to a trio after the recording of the album, buzz and churn out pop-rock spins with a dare-devil vocal mistress cooing woebegones over canyons of her personal history.
Thematically, Ghost Wave wears its organ on its tie-dyed sleeve. The band isn’t afraid to wrestle with death, as some of the songs concern the suicide of a friend and the death of a band member’s father. But instead of simply lamenting, Marshall is able to coax her and her bandmates’ troubles into verse, spreading them over the cosmos with ghostly billows of delay resonating in her wake. Guitarist Tim Lohmann flexes his effects pedals and forearm muscles to good use throughout the album, offering sitar sounds and warm patches of fuzz in the melodic moments not occupied by Marshall’s musings. These two elements play out best on album opener “Falling Behind,” as right-to-left stereo synths give way to a star-bound melody backed by a cubby hole of warm jammy psychedelia.
Although two albums into their recording career, the band still sounds somewhat young, feeling its way emotionally through the piecemeal songwriting process rather than laboring over it. This gives the album a lightness of mood, despite the band preferring to wrap itself in dark swirls. The Tapes seem to be having so much fun executing their sound they’ve created that a brooding style is hardly possible. For fans of the band, though, this is likely a draw for their live show, wherein the grooves and glitter come to life – Marshall can playfully work the stage, and the audience there to catch her if she falls.
