| Routines |This Is All | news | messages | 
| | Routines |This Is All | news | messages | |
|
|
 |
Helene: Routines (Series 8 SER 001 CD)There's nothing run-of-the-mill about these Routines What a fabulous voice Helene Dineen has. Go to Nothing To You on this month's WORD CD. If you've heard a more languid, warm and elegant thing in the last couple of months, I'll eat my hat. I first came across Helene - N.B. they're a band, not just the lady with the lungs - in 2003, thinking they sounded like Mazzy Star crossed with The Beautiful South, as barking as that sounds. With second album Routines, at times they're like a British Rilo Kiley, at others darkly and deliciously gothic. Firstlastforever begins proceedings with the kind of menace that can only come from the bass notes of a finely tuned piano and lyrics this eerily suggestive: "If I break a bone, I'll just sit right back down where I land / If I carry out a clean getaway I'll keep running just as fast as I can." Elsewhere Apostille sounds like a poppy Radio 2 regular and Could I Go Backwards is languorous country at its finest. Ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde produces and the results are impressively lush, especially given the band are on a tiny label. Helene deserve to be huge. (Jude Rogers, The Word, October 2006) Helene Dineen and Graham Gargiulo's lo-fi psychedelia For the second album, the follow-up to 2003's Postcard, Helene have filled out their sound, creating moody, hypnotic folk rock. Dineen sings with nuanced emotion and no cliches, her songs resonant with the cool, beguiling tones of Nico and the laconic edge of Nancy Sinatra. On Could I Go Backwards, for instance, the ghost of a boy "drowned fishing" hovers over the track with chilling simplicity, while on I Need A Girl, a duet with Graham Gargiulo, there are hints of bisexual romance in her wry delivery. Produced by Cocteau Twins maestro Simon Raymonde, the songs have a lush density, moving from meditative Velvet Underground-style rhythms to intimate wordplay, lilting mantras or startling wall of guitar. Whether she is seeing off an old suitor, or, as in the title track, delineating a more abstract mental state, Dineen always pulls you into her world. (Lucy O'Brien, Mojo, October 2006) Second outing for London dream rockers. Three years ago songwriting duo Helene Dineen and Graham Gargiulo emerged from late-90s also-rans Barefoot Contessa with the bewitching Postcard debut. The aptly named Routines continues where that album left off - at the core a pining heart that recalls the frosted elegance of first-album Velvets and an erotic undertow suggesting the sensual thrum of Mazzy Star. The countrified licks gilding Nothing To You bring a much-needed lift but elsewhere the impression that producer, former Cocteau Simon Raymonde, is too besotted by Helene's evident talent is hard to shift. Treading a fine line between precious and precocious on the likes of the unbearably twee This Is All We Have To Know, they too easily fall into the abyss. (Gavin Martin, Classic Rock, September 2006) Songbirds There's nothing routine about Helene Dineen's pure, sweet, gorgeous voice. Words tumble out like liquid gold on her band's transcendent second album. Built around the songwriting talents of Helene and Graham Gargiulo, the London-based outfit conjure up melodic, country-tinged soundscapes with hints of The Velvet Underground and, on This Is All We Have To Know, Leonard Cohen. (The Sun, Friday, August 18th 2006) Helene - Routines (Series 8) Although named after the smokey chanteuse, this is essentially the work of a song-writing duo formed after the break-up of Barefoot Contessa. Apostille works through chunky folk-pop with a lo-fi, Velvets teethgrind in the guitars. Could I Go Backwards has a Hazlewood/Sinatra brood with the country lilt that permeates the LP. This Is All We Have To Know is poppyfield psychedelia, a clear lightness in the touch. (Skif, Vanity Project #19, June 12th 2006) Continued |