Led by its ethereal melody, entirely muscular in substance and yet capable of drawing us closer in the same way a much softer instrument would, “Feel That” has all the guts and glory of a lead-off track like “Ship of Fools” or “Best Friends,” but as a deep cut in the new EP Chroma Crawl, it proves how much depth Helen Kelter Skelter has as a heavy rock act in 2023. If you haven’t heard the music this band out of OKC has been producing over the past eight years, you needn’t feel intimidated by this latest installment in the discography this crew has assembled under the Helen Kelter Skelter branding; quite frankly, I think this might be as close to a signature release as a non-LP can be.
The relationship between immersive tonal chaos and the lyrics it would be tasked with framing becomes pivotal to our understanding – and inevitably relating to – the narratives in “Best Friends” and “Sceptre,” but I don’t think either is artsy enough to serve as conceptual exhibitions here alone. There’s plenty of live potential in each of the five songs in this tracklist, and while they’ll probably take a bit of manipulation to readapt for a stage show, I think it’s something the band needs to go out of its way to consider over the summer season. Helen Kelter Skelter’s sound is brutish and intense while still being melodically palatable, which tends to be a winner with most adrenaline-starved live audiences in my experience.
“Feel That” and “Chill” could just as easily be fodder for music videos as well as “Ship of Fools” or “Best Friends” would be, and I can also understand why the band would choose to highlight all of these tracks equally as opposed to releasing them as individual singles. There’s certainly a radio-readiness to all of this material that cannot be denied, and better yet, I don’t even think the songs were designed with this intention in mind. Everything on Chroma Crawl sounds notably natural and human in the best manner that indie rock can, which isn’t something I can say for the majority of self-proclaimed heavy music I’ve heard stylized specifically to get lucrative airtime from the corporatized, FM element in the industry, no matter the genre.
Raw, uncompromising, and real, Helen Kelter Skelter’s latest release is the sophisticated stoner rock EP none of us knew we were in need of this June but many of us will regard as one of the best records of its kind to arrive on streaming sites in all of 2023. Chroma Crawl has moments of shapeless brilliance and disciplined angst in equal measure, and whether it creates a wave of support for the band or not, I think it’s going to make a significant splash in any regard. It’s simple but not lacking in the least; Chroma Crawl is a little bit of everything I like about Helen Kelter Skelter, which is what a rock solid EP needs to be through and through.
Kim Muncie