Party of helicopters.

JAMIE STILLMAN, A CHILD OF METAL who can't shake the love for prog rock, is one-fourth (occasionally one-third) of the Kent, Ohio group the Party of Helicopters. The POH are less cock, more rock than the metal bands of yesterday or those parodying the genre today.

"What I hear in metal is totally different than other people," Stillman says. "I really like At the Gates; they're like the Swedish metal version of the Strokes, very melodic. I can't figure out why is it so funny to like metal again or bands like the Darkness."

The group blends dreamy pop with frantic time signatures, metal riffs, and falsetto vocals, leaving critics and listeners fumbling for a back catalog of adjectives and "sounds likes" to describe their music. Their sound is entirely their own, and like true pioneers the POH saved their fans the trouble of reading through reviews with references to everything from Iron Maiden to Rush to My Bloody Valentine by coining their own niche, "JesusfuckingChrist, theseguysrock-core."

"I'm flattered," Stillman says, "but I don't see where the writers are getting their comparisons from. I can't look at it from an outside perspective. I think these comparisons throw people off, because it's nothing like it (our music). It isn't what you'd expect."

In the nine years since the POH's inception and over the course of five records, the band has made forays into punk, stoner and arena rock, to finally produce the 2003 lo-fi, hip-shaking metal-phenomenon Please Believe It on Velocette Records. First time listeners won't expect Joe Dennis' fanciful atmospheric vocals off-setting Cory Race's maddening 7/8 drumming, Ryan Brannon's heavy bass groove and Stillman's hundred notes a measure. They won't expect whimsical tunes about mustaches or songs deconstructing the indie rock audience like opening track "The Good Punk" does with the lyrics: "This ain't punk rock enough for my ears. I'm outta here ... They got a baby unicorn on the record cover ... Who's this cowboy think that he is?" Nor will they expect to be called out "to move their asses as a unit." Can you even move your ass to metal? POH believe it's possible.

"We want to write music people can't sit and stare or mosh to," explains Stillman. "The newer stuff is heading towards that, something more danceable. The collective goal is to travel and become the world's first shoegazing metal band with dance-pump tendencies." The POH East Coast dance parties incited are infamous and said to be almost as raucous as seeing the Fucking Champs or the Oxes. "We are definitely a live band," Stillman elaborates. "Most people understand the music when they see it live. They can see where it's coming from, because our music translates better live."

And POH want the rock and roll life span of Iron Maiden. They want to rock as hard as Van Halen or the Mars Volta of today. They even wish they had been old enough to have the opportunity of being booed off stage while opening for The Smiths. The POH would love to share just a leg, not an entire tour (for fear of their lives), with legendary thrash metal fiends At the Gates. And if there are any bands out there drawing over one thousand kids a night, please give these guys a call--they're ready to get the lead out and rock yer body to the middle of the dance floor.