Singer Brian Vollmer from legendary Canuck rockers HELIX have issued the following update on the band’s in-the-works compilation album:

“It’s been an exciting week here at Planet Helix. For starters, we were back at A Studios with Aaron Murray on Tuesday for another round of working on the four tracks we’ll be recording in the next couple of weeks.

On the Vagabond Bones CD Sean and I wrote the songs at his home in Toronto and then we brought Moe Berg in on five of the tracks to help finish them off. Initially that CD began with other players in the studio (Rob MacEachern on drums) and eventually ended up with the reformed band finishing the album off. We started to develop a process of how to bring the songs from start to finish in the studio on that CD. This time we’ve taken it a step farther by bringing the band into the studio and hammering out arrangements, changes, harmonies, etc. as everyone learns the songs and puts their “signature” on the song. We then record the demo, Aaron does a rough mix on it, and sends it out to everyone by email to fine-tune their parts. Once everyone is ready we then go back into the studio and do it for real.

The four songs we’ll be recording are: ‘Champagne Communist’, ‘Angelena’, ‘The Bitch Is A Bullet’, and ‘Skin In The Game’. Sean and I have actually had these songs written for quite a while. We put them together right after Vagabond Bones. Since then we got a little caught up in the acoustic CD and also with Helix live dates and Sean’s dates with NELLY FURTADO, Carl Dixon (CONEY HATCH), and Carole Pope (ROUGH TRADE).

The ride from Planet Helix here in east London, Ontario to Toronto to write with Sean is a gruesome 250 kilometer fight through rush hour traffic, but it’s always made worthwhile by the songs we kick out. Sean is also heavily involved in playing on commercials, as well as having his own band, working for other artists, and over the past couple of months recording his second classical guitar CD for Opening Day/Universal. (His last CD went to Number five on Billboard.) On Sean’s upcoming release he asked me into the studio to sing ‘Ave Maria’ in my “classical” voice. I haven’t heard the completed result yet, but he tells me it’s pretty good.”