Search - Help Yourself :: Help Yourself/Beware the Shadow

Help Yourself

Brett Basler | Johnston City, IL United States | 01/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love these guys. This is one of the many under appreciated bands of the early 70's. All their songs are great, and alot of them should have been hits. The radio is missing out by not playing these guys. I beleive this is some of the best mellow rock you will ever hear. And some of their songs are pretty hard rocking too. I think the song She's my Girl is one of the best mellow kind of rock song in the world. I don't beleive there is anything better. Anybody that got to see these guys live is very lucky, I beleive. All the old bands should be playing live today, and they should all be played on the radio. That's the way it should be. I recommend this to anybody that likes good classic rock."

From humble beginnings to musical trips

Jan Wiberg | Helsinki, Finland | 09/26/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Malcolm Morley had obviously overdosed on Buffalo Springfield and early Neil Young when he wrote the material for Help Yourself's debut. Of the nine first tracks, which comprise this eponymous album, "Your Eyes Are Looking Down" in particular sounds like a Young cover, and the following four tracks should also please any BS/NY fan. The best moments, however, come when the band really display their originality. "To Katherine They Fell" is a quiet mood piece flavored by Morley's guitar echoing in the background and Ken Whaley's bass adding sounding board to Dave Charles' free-form drumming. "Deborah" is the other highpoint, a sad, simple piano ballad where Morley really sounds heartfelt. The more forceful "Running Down Deep" and the drowsy closer "Street Songs" are also worth mentioning. This debut, while not a great album, still pleases and serves well as a harmless introduction to Help Yourself.



"Beware the Shadow", the band's third album, shows the originality in full bloom. "Alabama Lady" was the first HY song I ever heard, and it's still a favorite, an easy-to-get-into and easy-to-like cheerful song wonderfully played. "Reaffirmation" is the album's centerpiece. Flute and guitar drift out from nowhere, Morley utters a series of short lines, once interrupted by an instrumental part where drums also join in. After three minutes Morley stops singing, the tempo picks up and the band starts drifting off into a musical stratosphere. The tone shifts to a funky rhythm laced with multi-layered guitars, and soon the whole band starts chanting "reaffirmation" for about a minute, and the rest is dedicated purely to an instrumental extravaganza that soothes and amazes you, and you feel pleasantly exhausted when the whole thing finally is wrapped up at 12:35. "Calapso" is a small section of an obvious studio jam, but at 1:11 it's criminally short, you hardly even manage to pick up the catchy calypso beat. We want three minutes!



"She's My Girl" is possibly the HY song that's closest to my heart. What might sound like an innocent love song is actually a very sad song, Morley possibly singing about a loved one who has left him, or whom he has mistakenly hurt in some way. This should have been a single - why wasn't it? The humorous and deliberately messed-up "Molly Bake Bean" sounds like a fireside chant late one night after a few too many beers, but the background noises sound like coming from a kitchen or a small workshop during lunch hour. A guy named Sean Tyla co-wrote the bitter "American Mother", which appeared on Tyla Gang's 1978 "Moonproof" album as a growling three-minute hard-rocker. Help Yourself's version is a spacey, pompous, impressive seven-minute symphony where Morley shouts out the lyrics with a clear, crisp voice. "Passing Through" closes this album non-distinctively with simple acoustic guitar backing and nothing more. No matter, the listener has already got his stomach full and could hardly take any more.



Morley might have suffered from depression at the time of "Beware the Shadow", but it produced the best HY album ever!"