There’s a top-to-bottom pleasure in listening to Heliotropes, that one can only describe as life to death, the vast pool between deep space and deep bass, the 2,000 light-year stare of a cosmic soul who looks through the human telescope and declares, stoically, beautifully: “Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
All the same, it may as easily be that this Brooklyn-based trio has those riffs, those hungry-zombie riffs that hit the toggle-switch in our head, in concert with the occasional “nah-nana-nah” that sound cool and confident – and this is a combination we can’t help but enjoy.
Download “Holy Cross” by Heliotropes.
Listen: It’s certainly true that I can’t even type the name Heliotropes without thinking of Helios Creed, which makes me want to listen to Chrome while simultaneously considering the possibilities of “Busting Through the Van Allan Belt,” and we’re back to “Cosmic” Carl looking death in the eye and keeping it deep for Parade Magazine.
Which also brings us back to Heliotropes. Maybe.
So we’re looking death in the eye while still keeping our eyes (yes, we have many eyes) on Heliotropes. We highly recommend taking the band up on their generous offer of a free download of the “III” EP. Recently posted tastes of the two-tracks slated to comprise an upcoming seven-inch, entitled “Ribbons” and featuring a stark goat-hailing cover, in contrast to the bright colors of the “III” EP, are all kinds of awesome, only increasing our zombie hunger for more.
“Success, recognition and conformity are the bywords of the modern world, where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.”
– Martin Luther King, “Strength to Love,” conveyed to the Apes by the inestimable Greg Proops.
Original Heliotropes photo by Laura Turley.
Revolt of the Apes 
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