By Jason Hunter
Helium "The Dirt of Luck"
The creepy, clanky sound of Mary Timony's Helium is a perfect listen as Halloween approaches. The sinister strumming high up on the neck of her guitar, the deadpan whispers about skeletons, curses, and vampires makes for an intense listen as things switch from spooky to bright power chords. Building on the evil promise of the Pirate Prude EP, 1995's The Dirt of Luck in a wonderful combination of Timony's goth subjects blended with big pop hooks. There are many personal loves on this record " Pat's Trick", "Superball", Skeleton", and "Trixie's Star". However, it's operatic "Baby's Going Underground" that crushed my indie-boy heart in high school. It's got this vacuum-cleaner-from-hell guitar sound that falls away into a heavenly trinity of Timony's vocals, slide guitar, and xylophone. An underrated album of tweaked pop from the mid '90s and the start of a trio of releases (No Guitars EP, The Magic City) that makes the case for one of the best guitar players no one's ever heard of.
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