The Hellp Unpacks New Album, ‘Riviera’

The L.A.-based duo’s album dropped Nov. 21 

The Hellp’s Noah Dillon knows that Santa Barbara is considered the American Riviera. He prefers to envision it as Long Beach, anyway. 

“I always thought about ‘The Riviera’ being this escape,” he tells Los Angeles over a Zoom call. “I can literally see [Long Beach] out of my window right now in the far, far distance, the bridge. It’s in this industrial, almost wasteland, but it’s on the beautiful coast.”  

Dillon, who hails from Colorado, is one half of indie-electronic band The Hellp. He and Chandler Lucy (born and raised in Northern California) met in the throes of the fashion world as a photographer and model, respectively. A 2016 album and smattering of EPs led the duo to signing under Atlantic’s Anemoia Records imprint. Along the way, they also garnered praise across the spectrum, from Pitchfork to Paper, as indie sleaze heroes. Dillon and Lucy rejected the label and proved it with music marked by authentic introspection, earnest bravado and a haunted, sleek soundscape. They also put on one hell of a show, as demonstrated by a sold-out run around the U.S. and Europe this year, including a pitstop at Coachella’s DoLab stage. 

“It’s been a very intensive year,” says Lucy. “We probably had about no more than two days off at a time every four months or something this entire year.”  

Propelled by what can only be described as an American work ethic, it’s no surprise The Hellp made a new record between worldwide touring, personal projects and appearances at London and Paris Fashion Weeks.  

Credit: Courtesy The Hellp

Released on Nov. 21, Riviera marries electronic, indie and rock sounds across 10 tracks that probe the American Dream. The concept is made obvious with song titles like “Country Road” and “New Wave America,” but feels particularly urgent with the opening track, “Revenge of the Mouse Diva.” Lush vocals deliver a warning: “When you live on the walk of fame, don’t forget you can walk away. … They will get you if you let them.” But the record — even though characterized by themes of isolation and disillusionment — spotlights a silver lining of the modern world: not everything has to be so serious. “Yesterday was just a feeling,” they admit on “Doppler.”  

“It’s the disparate Americana but with the hope that we will rise again. I mean, it’s not like we ever failed or whatnot. It’s just people are tired of what’s going on right now, no matter which way you cut it whether it’s economically or socially, politically, whatever,” Dillon says. After “investi[gating] what it means to be this kind of very rough around the edges band, a couple of guys, on a major label,” Riviera is their “most mature offering yet.”  

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Both Dillon and Lucy have been based in Los Angeles for about a decade. A few years later, the origins of Riviera began with the final track, “Live Forever,” taking shape. But they held onto it until it had a better home. After accomplishing their original goal — a pop-ish record with a sound that meets at the intersection of nostalgic and futuristic — with 2024’s LL, The Hellp was ready to return to and explore what it meant to live on the beautiful Southern California coastline through late-stage capitalism. More specifically, to live in a geographically expansive, sundrenched city where many ambitions go to die; a twisted landscape only protected by the viability of an individual’s fantasy projection of big city dreams. 

“We find it inspiring in more of a subversive way,” says Lucy of L.A.  

Credit: Courtesy The Hellp

The Hellp really don’t mean to sound so pessimistic. Even Dillon, a self-professed cynic, thinks “things have gotten a bit too cynical” and hysterical lately. Adds Lucy, “We’re not [all] talking about any other country’ dream. We’re only talking about the American Dream. Still. And whether or not it’s been eviscerated by politicians who don’t care about us or private interests or whatever. It doesn’t even matter. If it’s still being talked about and certain people still believe it exists, then it still exists.”  

Continues Dillon, “I think that everything matters. I think that we have to really care about everything, and that is what the American Dream is all about — caring a lot and working hard and making things better.”