Helen's unexpected return is more comforting than essential

There’s a plethora of newer artists enamoured with and luxuriating in the nostalgia of similarly fuzzed-out sounds, bringing their own moody interpretations to huge audiences – take Ethel Cain or Minneapolis band she’s green, for instance – and that passion for the music is clearly in Harris too, aided here by bassist Scott Simmons and drummer Jed Bindeman. Going beyond the realms of her better-known Grouper project, Linda’s Head is an excursion into hazy territory where dream-pop, shoegaze, and fuzzy indie-rock overlap, and, in that sense, it’s full of promise. But the results tend to meander rather aimlessly instead of hooking the listener and enveloping us in Helen's own world. Too often the songs start brightly, even relatively bouncy, but peter out in a whimper. It’s like watching a wind-up toy slowly gearing down as the kinetic energy needed to perform ticks to a stop. Of course the tracks are replete with the requisite distorted guitars, submerged vocals, and a deliberately blurred sense of space, but, on a few songs, Harris’s voice is pushed more to the fore, becoming a more crucial part of the mix. Soft enough to become part of the instrumentation, but melodic enough to pr...