Helvetia -
Dromomania (2015)
I must have first heard Helvetia around 2008 with their sophomore album
The Acrobats, and subsequently their debut
The Clever North Wind. While each album had a few standout tracks, they failed to make much of an impression on me and I didn't follow their career beyond that. Fast forward 7 years and 5 albums later,
Dromomania entered my radar and I added it to my 2015 queue. After noticing a few good tracks while shuffling this giant queue, I decided to give the album a spin while driving on Thanksgiving day and it's been in rotation since. The album as a whole seems more present than the two I was familiar with, and already has more stand-outs than those two combined. Still relatively lo-fi, but their early albums were somewhat slowcore and this feels more active. It makes me wonder, have I missed other Helvetia albums that are worth a listen?
To top it off, today I realized there is a deluxe edition of the album with a bonus album - a "lost album" that was recorded shortly after the release of the previous album, lost in a computer meltdown and eventually recovered. It feels just a solid as the "main" album - so that's great.