Anthony Franco Vaccaro, singular performing member of Helicopter Leaves, describes Moreoff More Off Than On, the first single from the upcoming album Sabrina Nickels, as an attempt to push “outside the typical guitar-forward indie rock” of 2023’s Get Stuck In. Keeping the familiar distorted guitars, heavy snare hits, and soft-toned vocal delivery, and bringing in new, for Helicopter Leaves, elements of synthesizer loops, glitched drums, and mantras from Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
It’s an appealing mix, heavy and wistful in equal measure. Vaccaro comes across like a digital native J. Mascis, gently preaching against “Lying down like a cheap Jesus”, his voice almost hiding amongst the clean chords of the verses before pulling away and allowing the sound to open up into a chugging wall of a chorus. The heavy chords and looping Moog line reminiscent of early Grandaddy tracks are given a bedroom hyperpop edge before lifting into a brighter outro as Vaccaro finds his full register and climbs over his wall of sound, armed with Herman Hesse’s words “The river has taught me to listen”. A learned lesson and an appeal to “take time to slow down, take in life and maybe find something new and inspiring”, as Vaccaro himself says.
It’s a pity then that Vaccaro can’t quite seem to nail this lesson himself. Moreoff More Off Than On’s brief runtime (117 seconds all in) doesn’t give the listener that time to slow down and feel the slightly disparate sections for their own sake before moving onto a new thought. Still running longer than the almost haiku-length tracks of previous Helicopter Leaves tracks, Vaccaro is starting to listen, and may have something really special on his hands, if we can all just be patient and learn from the river to listen closely.
Written by John Gunning
