The End of All-Purpose

After Chicago’s underrated Troubled Hubble split in 2005, key member Chris Otepka focused on nurturing his long-simmering solo work under the Heligoats moniker. As with Troubled Hubble, the music of Heligoats (Otepka and numerous guest musicians) treads a path down the middle, and rock-isms of all kinds run parallel, occasionally intersecting and merging: there is a pinch of indie pop, a dash of freak folk, and a hint of art-student-turned-musician. “Morning Gloree” beautifully fuses two genres, starting as a folky lullaby that blooms to a colorful crescendo of psych-rock. Heligoats evokes both Neutral Milk Hotel and Mountain Goats at times, nowhere so effectively as on “Been a Drill,” with its blazing acoustic guitar and euphoric string and horn coda. Otepka shares a gift for lyrical craftwork with those artists and he gives vigorous punch to lines like, “We’re a couple of skeletons/inside our very own hotter-than-hell...” and “Every minute is more of a thrill/than the next five times could ever be.” The melancholy swagger of “Kind/Brutal” and the heartbreaking waltz of “You Win” reveal an artist with a profound well of musical vision.