Rock band Helms Alee have offered fans a first glance at their transformed sound with single “See Sights Smell Smells,” the opener of their upcoming album Keep This Be the Way. The single was released alongside a music video created by Allen Watke. The album will be available on April 29, 2022. 

Unique from their other albums, Helms Alee recorded Keep This Be the Way on their own, allowing them more creative license in the production of the work. Because of this, the band’s press release labels this album as “their most dynamic and technicolored work to date.” The imagery offered by this language is displayed in the video for “See Sights Smell Smells,” which is a piece of video art made possible by “VHS dubbing, glitching and manipulation.” 

The album was a pandemic project for the band; guitarist-vocalist Ben Verellen, bassist-vocalist Dana James and drummer-vocalist Hozoji Matheson-Margullis “bunkered down in a makeshift studio” and spent the bulk of 2020 and part of 2021 writing and recording songs for the album.

Their new approach — recording the album on their own — means an incoming Helms Alee that stays true to their roots as a band while exploring a sound that doesn’t define itself by recreating how they sound live. 

Keep This Be The Way Tracklist

See Sights Smell Smells

Keep This Be the Way

How Party Do You Hard?

Tripping Up the Stairs

Big Louise

Do Not Expose to the Burning Sun

The Middle Half

Mouth Thinker

Three Cheeks to the Wind

Guts for Brains

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat