Labels: Interscope
Review by: Kunal Nandi
Reformations. Screw them, right?
Wrong, although it must be said that absolutely everything did point towards Helmet’s comeback being complete and utter shit. It takes a special kind of arrogance to reignite a dormant band after a six year hiatus with a mere single original member (what is this? Napalm Death? Zao?) and then, when playing live, showcase a LOT of new tracks when you have one of the most illustrious back-catalogues in heavy music. “Helmet”’s popularity as the euphemism of choice when referring to male genitalia (though I still prefer the classic “cheesy bell-end”) has also been on the rise in the time since the band went away. So, it wasn’t looking good. At all.
So it is with a leaping heart that I report that Helmet is still not only utterly relevant in today’s vibrant and ever-evolving music scene, but also one of the best around, cutting a swathe through the watered-down pap that purports to be influenced by them. Eyebrows that were raised at the fact that only Page Hamilton had returned should be lowered when you consider that it was always his gig anyway, what with him being the main songwriter. That’s not to discount the excellent work that one of the finest rhythm sections in hard rock (bassist Henry Bogdan and drummer John Stanier) did, or the array of rhythm guitarists that were in the band over the years. The guys that are involved now are all old workhorses, so they know that if you want to keep things simple and stripped-down, you have to be amazingly good and tight. Chris Traynor, ex- of the criminally underrated NYHC band Orange 9mm, provides guitar and bass backup of perfect precision too, and Joey Tempesta (ex- of Zombi) is a perfectly talented drummer. One has to wonder whether he would have had the musical nouse or intuition to come up with as deceptively fucked-up a beat as Stanier provided for “Rollo” (off the “Betty” LP) though.
The other key to this album’s success is that instead of going out on a limb and experimenting with a new approach, Hamilton has simply opted for a continuation of what he was doing six years ago, which is good, because what they were doing before was untrammelled genius. And what Helmet deal in are riffs. Sorry… RIFFS. Big fuck-off RIFFS so meaty, you could eat them with a knife and fork. This opens with a triptych of sheer brilliance, running the gamut from slow to fast, silence to extreme volume. “Smart” is a classically brutal, mid-tempo, monolithic riff tempered with one of those insanely memorable Hamilton melodies effortlessly welded to it. “Crashing Foreign Cars” is a fast number, complete with snarling drill-sergeant vocals. “See You Dead” is the definition of staccato, all guitar stabs and stomping drums punching in your cerebral cortex. All of these are classics, ready to sit beside Helmet’s already burgeoning back-catalogue. Although it does take a downturn after that opening triptych, it’s certainly not rapid, though there are some overtly radio-friendly choruses that will mean that those people who thought they started sucking midway through “Strap It On” will find nothing here. People like that are worrying anyway. Considering it was written over a six-year period, with about nine other people aside from Hamilton involved to different degrees in the song-writing process (some of them probably offcuts from the aborted Gandhi project), it’s remarkably cohesive, both in terms of sound (a great production job by Hamilton himself) but also in terms of the style. I’m still not keen on the lyrical angle Hamilton took on Aftertaste, where what he was saying actually started to mean something, mostly about failed relationships. I preferred it when it was all intangible, emotionless and in keeping with those inhuman riffs, but that’s a small quibble.
This is exactly what’s needed right now “” no frills hardcore, pure and simple. It’s on a major, so give it a couple of months before checking your local second-hand bins.