Helicopter Leaves finds his footing on the gorgeous, heartfelt ‘Sabrina Nickels’

It’s a fallacy that we only “come of age” once. If you’re doing it right, those moments keep coming — when you leave a friend group that no longer fits, when you fall in love, when you follow your dreams instead of the safer path. Anthony Vaccaro, guitarist and co-songwriter for Chicago breakout rock band Beach Bunny, is smack in the middle of one of those moments with Sabrina Nickels, the new full-length from his solo project Helicopter Leaves, out now on Noyes Records.

This one’s a step up in every sense. Where his 2023 record ‘Get Stuck In’ was a gloriously weird DIY suite tracked in his grandparents’ basement, Sabrina Nickels was recorded at the legendary Electrical Audio (Steve Albini’s storied Chicago studio) and at the home studio of Sean O’Keefe — frequent Beach Bunny collaborator and the guy behind records by Fall Out Boy and Motion City Soundtrack. Vaccaro played every instrument himself, and the result is a dizzyingly gorgeous collection that ping-pongs between unrequited love, family memories, and the sometimes unbearable weight of just being alive.

Named for Someone Who Mattered

The album’s title cuts deep. Sabrina Nickels is named after a childhood family friend who transitioned later in life and died of cancer in recent years — someone who took a young Vaccaro to shows, listened to his songs, and gave him the kind of safe space he didn’t have elsewhere.

“She changed my life by taking me to shows as a child. I would confide in her and show her my songs. I wanted to title my record using her chosen name.” — Anthony Vaccaro

That trust matters. Vaccaro was too afraid to play his songs for his parents growing up. Sabrina was his audience, his encouragement, his spiritual north star — and this record is the monument she deserves.

Track by Track: Growing Up in Real Time

The album opens with the deceptively bright, clap-along It Really Never Did, a song about growing out of old friendships and relationships and, somehow, being okay with that. “As I get older, especially in the creative world, I don’t have many people I grew up with in my life anymore,” Vaccaro says. “Everyone wants to get a normal desk job, and I’m somebody who has the ability and the privilege to be creative for a living. It’s hard.”

From there, Feeling Nothing Is Worse arrives as a sugary, teeth-gnashing banger about getting sober — kind of. Sorry From Now On shuffles in almost dragging its feet, a sonic portrait of Vaccaro’s overly apologetic nature. Moreoff More Off Than On is pure experimentation — a clattering ode to a weird turn of phrase he spotted in a book — while Falling Water (Before You) is inspired by his hatred of Frank Lloyd Wright and the way supposedly revolutionary inventions can age terribly. “This new invention, you’ll experience in this time, in 50 years will be considered crap,” he says.

I Should Have Been Listening is a lilting fairytale of a track that nearly didn’t make it out — an old friend had to push him to release it. NUMBER GIRL is the big, brash counterpoint, named after a beloved Japanese band that makes its own version of American rock. “When Eastern culture tries to replicate Western culture and makes something new, better,” Vaccaro says. The dreamy Show Me All Your Landscape Paintings pulls us back to childhood — to grandparents, safety, the particular comfort of a room full of paintings.

Then comes Dreaming About Everyone But You, a bittersweet dispatch from the land of situationships, followed by What’s One More Place — a song about a healthier relationship still full of its own honest tensions. And finally, Self-Reliance closes the record with an uncomfortable, clear-eyed look at the WWII-generation stoicism of his grandfather and what it means to shape your own future.

Treble called the album “earnest, bittersweet, but hopeful amid dreamy, albeit crunchy guitar rock anthems that nod to the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement.” Rosy Overdrive put it simply: “Sabrina Nickels is a whirlwind.”

Watch: What’s One More Place?

“This one just fell right out of me naturally one summer afternoon. It references events people have told me about or I have personally experienced that I had written down in my phone. This song works with the feelings of sadness of not wanting to leave creature comforts of home behind even though you know that’s the only way to get anywhere in life.” — Anthony Vaccaro on What’s One More Place?

Sabrina Nickels is out now on Noyes Records.