Musicellaneous‣The Helix Nebula

It’s Friday again, the time when music stars are falling from the sky, or now and then a whole nebula!

In this fifth edition of Musicellaneous I’d like to introduce the dear reader to The Helix Nebula, Australian wizards of instrumental prog metal, which sometimes diverges into djent and math rock.

All the nebulae

The Helix Nebula is based in Sydney, Australia, and it’s not to be confused with its namesake Helix Nebula. The latter comes from Spain and plays death prog. In fact, there’s no similarity between the two bands whatsoever, except for the name.

Our today’s heroes have the concrete and unambiguous The in the name, which, in this case, makes a lot of difference.

The Helix Nebula’s line-up:

• Jake Howsam Lowe — guitar
• Stephen Taranto — guitar
• Simon Grove — bass and production
• Nic Tresise — drums

The band was founded in 2011 and I spot at least two well-known names in the above list: the bass player and music producer Simon Grove, who played with numerous djent acts (Plini, Intervals, Owane etc.), and Jake Howsam Lowe, the live guitarist of Plini.

Meridian

Judging by the band’s tour schedule it is still active, but mostly as a support act.

When it comes to their releases, though, there’s just a single EP called Meridian (2014).

And I think it’s a great pity, because Meridian is a real masterpiece in any aspect: musically, technically, compositionally, or in terms of the sound. It can be described as a fusion of classic djent by Animals as Leaders with the melodicity of Plini.

Highly recommended.

Discography

	2014	Meridian (EP)