![]() Best of all is “Hallelujah”, which channels gospel fervor despite being decidedly un-gospel in practice. “The Captive Mind” pulses even heavier, Summers’s Edge-like guitars echoing and snapping around the bobbing groove a gorgeous, subtle lift in its refrain would register as a lump in the throat if the song’s rhythm wasn’t so gleefully propulsive. “Can’t Say No”, with subtle electronic bubbles at its core, is a soundtrack for a stadium-sized dance floor full of 90-degree dance moves. ![]() Keep Your Eyes Ahead is all auditory deliverance from the get-go: opening track “Lately”, though it hinges on face-saving bravado (“I’m living alone / I don’t need you anymore”, Summers sings, though it’s obvious his insistence is just a front), fluctuates between palpitating constancy and escalation - essentially a byproduct of the terse interplay between Summers’s guitars and Weikel’s drum kit. With each record that it makes, the Helio Sequence (Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel) sounds less like a duo and more like a highly evolved studio project, its ping-ponging, wave-cresting pulses of staccato rhythm taking flight one refrain at a time. (Consequently, the touchstones of the Helio Sequence’s sound are less concurrent with their Pacific Northwest roots and more in step with the dramatic affect of across-the-pond Big Rock.) The songs breathe big sighs of reverb and echo they’re cannonballs of anthemic weight launched from more succinct indie slings, great forward pushes of musical release. It’s an apt image when you consider the exhaling, weight-off-the-chest sound of Keep Your Eyes Ahead, a record that scooches even closer to the sweeping gestures of early U2 and New Order than 2004’s Love and Distance. Winged things are being set free throughout the Pavlina Honcova-Summers paintings that grace the cover and insert of the Helio Sequence’s fourth album.
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