Real, Real Gone

CD Cover Helen Gone
Independent

Review by Dan Carle



45-second excerpt from "Inner Adolescent" (350 Kb .au file)


Helen Gone is a Vancouver acoustic-driven folk trio with an interesting name, an uninteresting CD cover, and a sound which sits somewhere between rhythmically original and popishly polished. The band's 12-track debut disc is a soulful compilation which grows on even the most novice of ears. Time makes for greatness. Repetition makes for understanding. Absorbing this disc takes some work.

The upbeat "Making Ends Meet" ends with a teasing whistle-hook straight out of the old Andy Griffith Show. That hook is hard to escape. But the disc also seems to carry a message as well as a melody. "Inner Adolescent," for instance, is a song about the search for the inner child in us all: "I tried teddy bears and I tried therapy/and I searched and I searched in my memory/but I'm in touch with a different energy."

Deep, yes, rhythmic, yes, heavy, kinda, but not really when delivered by a trio who themselves look very much like they have been to hell and back.

It is that experience that makes Real, Real Gone real, real good.


Artist Contact Info: c/o 750 Pacific Boulevard S., Box #7, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V6B 5E7




First published in Drop-D Magazine on December 20, 1996

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