Black Helium (The Animals Are Coming)

Greg Aramini
Sep 26
4 min read

Released: 2025

Genre: Heavy Psych Rock, Krautrock

Sounds Like: Firefriend, Fomies, Wooden Shijps

Homeland: London, UK

What makes The Animals Are Coming elite and sit atop OHMs Peak?

Black Helium has released one of this year's most creative heavy psych albums.
This masterpiece is driven by remote vocals, psychedelic distortion, and a sense of exploration.
The six tracks flow seamlessly, making it effortless to become immersed in their brand of heavy psychedelic wonder.

Track Listing:

Return The Curse 11:44
Saviour Destroyer 6:23
Worm Vision 4:00
They Have Bodies 6:27
Up On A Hill 4:37
Inside The Horror Mask 10:11

Dive deeper into The Animals Are Coming with our Q&A with vocalist/guitarist Stuart Gray of Black Helium.

OHMs Peak: We love your library of releases! Your fourth full length, The Animals Are Coming is absolutely addictive hitting new heights us. Of the four albums this seems the most cohesive from a concept album perspective as the six tracks are inseparable. Take us through some themes and the intriguing dystopian type title on this one.

Stuart Gray: Thank you so much, that makes me happy to hear. We're super happy with this album, we're kinda hitting our stride a bit more with this one. The album title came from Beck, in fact all of our album titles, come from Beck She was talking to a friend who was dealing with grief at the time having lost his Mum, and he mentioned, that he was having weird moments where animals such as birds, dogs and insects were actually approaching him,comforting him, and how he felt the spirit of his lost one was coming to him in animal form. This was very comforting to him, and when Beck went to sleep that night she awake suddenly with a strange feeling, and the phrase "the animals are coming!" just came to her. I thought it was very moving, but also without that context it feels both reassuring and ominous, especially in these times.

OHMs Peak: ‘Inside the Horror Mask’ is such a brilliant closing track. The swirling euphoric height of this track and subtle synths is incredible. We would love to hear more about how this song came about.

Stuart Gray: It's very hard to remember writing songs, especially in this band as we work extremely fast, but also super intensely. I had the first 'song part' for a while, and we'd worked on a quite complex piece for the end, but somehow it never really felt right, too cerebral for us. So we just decided to do something simple, yet dynamic. All the other weird sounds came from synths and Beck playing a bowed bass. It has the strange eerie euphoria of Ecstasy Symphony by Spacemen 3 to my ears.

OHMs Peak: You seem aligned with our passion for horror films. If you could go back and lay down the soundtrack for any horror film ….what would it be and why?

Stuart Gray: I hardly watch any horror films these days, although I've watched thousands over the years. Eighties slasher films used to give me a warm sense of nostalgia disturbingly. But I guess I'm getting too sensitive to enjoy them nowadays, especially with all that's going on in the world. My friend came over at Christmas and we watched Terrifier 3! fucking hell! what was all that about? Makes Friday the 13th look like Herbie Goes Bananas. But it would be very hard to change a soundtrack to a film we love, so maybe something cheap and silly would be more fun. Something daft like Street Trash or Spasms. But we'd love to do a soundtrack someday, maybe not a horror, but something.

OHMs Peak: We have a fetish for echo particularly in the psychedelic rock genre. The Animals Are Coming has the absolute perfect blend and precision of echo within the vocals. Just our ignorance, but take us through how the echo is infused with your music and how you master just the right balance. We hear this butchered by various acts but you guys integrate it so beautifully.

Stuart Gray: It's hard to say really, everything we do is 99% intuitive. We lay down our tracks pretty dry as I don't use any reverb on my guitar, but it's a lot more spacious with the overdubs. Ben Turner did an amazing job making these sound worlds actually come out the speakers. I guess we go a bit Reign In Blood with the backing track, and Space Ritual with the overdubs. I like my vocals to have a calm otherworldly vibe to them.

OHMs Peak: We would love any insight as to your current and upcoming tour plans? Have you played the United States? Where have you not played that you would love to make an appearance?

Stuart Gray: Because we are a small band we don't have the budget to play many places overseas. We played the Netherlands and Germany last year which was absolutely amazing. But we'd love to go to the US someday. I don't know how tricky and expensive it is with work visa and stuff.

OHMs Peak: The album art is very bold on The Animals Are Coming with its in your face font. Who created and how did it come about? Are you utilizing the same artist on all four albums?

Stuart Gray: Beck has done every cover since our first. We definitely have an aesthetic which is quite fun, yet dark, so I guess its a case of having something bold and direct which suits the album. I always prefer and love bands that do their own artwork. That gives them a deeper and more intuitive sense how the artwork should look. We're really lucky. I couldn't bear it if we asked someone else to do it and we weren't happy.

OHMs Peak: Black Helium is stranded on an island with only a solar powered turntable and majestic powered solar blue tooth speakers. The band collectively can only choose one album. Which album to you agree to?

Stuart Gray: Impossible really. but we all love Forever Changes by Love! That's a beautifully dense psychedelically comforting album.

Black Helium are:

Stuart Gray (vocals, guitar)

Beck Harvey (bass, vocals)

Diogo Gomes (drums)

Follow Black Helium: Bandcamp / Facebook