Helen Money | Facebook
Available through Profound Lore Records
You don't get asked to play on over 150 records without reason, and Alison Chesley has dragged her cello along to play with the likes of Mono, Bob Mould, Anthrax and Russian Circles. In many ways that's really beside the point though, because her project Helen Money is the real triumph.
Arriving Angels will be third album for Helen Money and it's one of the most intriguing and utterly rewarding things I've ever heard.
Mind you, Chesley makes you work for your reward with part of that reward being for withstanding the occasional vicious attack on your musical pendulum with some of the most violent and jarring bow work you will hear. The aptly titled 'Upsetter' is a great example, where she demonstrates the slow torture of discordant and repetitious passages with little relief. While some might knock you about the room with harsh vocals, Helen Money calmly removes your fingernails before painting the puffy raw ends with petrol. This is metal, but not the fun-loving carnival that Apocalyptica create with their cellos.
Consisting almost entirely of cello, with drums on four tracks and a sprinkling of piano in one, there is some similarity with guitar-and-bass metal, after all the source is vibrating strings, but the timbre and the nature of the attack and delay when plucked and struck with horsehair opens a new universe of awesome. Cello is surely the most emotional instrument in its natural form and in the right hands manipulation enhances it even further. This is why metal is its natural home.
Chesley serves us a variety of heartbeats, at times slow, at others full of pace driven by fear. The compositions are astounding. This is due in large part to the use of all of a note's available qualities – something usually lacking in rock and metal. In compositions like 'Midwestern Nights Dream' sequences of plucked notes are allowed to decay fully, while in others the attack is exploited to create a ticking clock.
Many of the most effective techniques are subtle and used very sparingly – perhaps once or twice - and provide great contrast with the electronic looping to create and retain a natural sound and feel, as well as mystery and tension. An example is the slow drumming in 'Shrapnel' which sounds like rimshots but for two beats toward the end that are more like flam. Similarly the slow plodding piano in closer 'Runout' sounds like single notes save for the last couple which are clearly chords with the keys not struck in perfect unison. Whether these are written or a consequence of the performance is irrelevant - Chesley has an amazing understanding of the difference between the warm humanity of the imperfect real-time elements and the cold precision of the loops.
When you listen to this though, you need to get out of any headspace that treats this as a novelty. It's not a must-have because it's a metal album played on cello. It's a must-have because it's a brilliant metal album.
