CITIZINE REVIEWS
Helmet discography

by Mark Prindle
www.markprindle.com

Helmet was formed by Page Hamilton (former member of guitar-drone-heavy Band of Susans and I think he played with Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra at some point) to focus on DISCIPLINED HEAVINESS. For their first few years, they concentrated on alternating extremely monolithic, distorted, mean-spirited low-end-of-guitar (high-end-of-guitar-neck) riffs with blank space -- topped with a guy yelling. Interscope Records thought they were gonna be huge and paid them eleventy bafillion dollars to join their shittyass label, at which point the band had a minor MTV hit and then went through several personnel and stylistic changes that continue to this very day.

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Strap It On
(Amphetamine Reptile, 1990)

Grungy, filthy, angry, muddy, tight, sludgy and heavy as a blimp filled with cement! Helmet’s debut LP was an astonishing addition to AmRep’s stable of “noise” bands (also featuring Cows, Tar, Helios Creed, Thrown Ups and many many more), filled to the blimp (filled with cement) with aggressive detuned low-end chord/space chord/space riffs, gruff shouted “guy who smokes for a living” vocals and a flavorful topping of slippery, queasy nearly out-of-tune Branca-esque guitar drone racket.

The chord sequences themselves are cool enough, featuring tons of heavy repetition and the occasional confusing time signature (especially in the par excellence “Distracted”), but it’s the production that drives the whole thing over the border into “What the hell IS THIS???”ville, Kentucky.

Two distorted guitars and a bass disciplinedly play the EXACT SAME THING for the entirety of every song on the record. And they’re reverbed and bassed out all to hell, presenting the sickening impression that there’s no band at all, but just a drummer and a guy screaming and playing guitar through an amp filled with industrial waste. And it’s beauty-ful!

They had a sound unlike any other AmRep band, regardless of many a critic’s complaint that every AmRep band sounded the same. One band that it was slightly reminiscent of in a very slight way was Bleach-era Nirvana -- DON’T YELL AT ME -- I’m not saying that Helmet and Nirvana were actually alike at all; just that the phlegmy shouting and sick distorted guitar tones of the two albums are similar. Which may be why the dumbasses at Interscope signed Helmet for 58 jillion dollars and planted stories in the press that they were going to be “the next Nirvana.” But alas, they didn’t even turn out to be the next whatever the hell Krist Novoselic’s next band was called.

Meantime
(Interscope, 1992)

Same basic style, with the caveat that the mix sounds much more “major label” and more like a normal modern metal band, as opposed to the oddbird craggendiddlydoo of Strap It On. Mr. Hamilton also sings more than he yells, with a bitter voice that sounds like it’s no fun to be around. The heavy record starts awesome -- these guys do great stuff with the same four chords over and over! -- but gets slightly less interesting during the second half. Plus, almost every song has the same exact headbanging city-dwelling atmosphere. It will take you forever to distinguish one song from the other.

On another note, let me toss an anecdote in your direction: I saw Helmet live right after Strap It On came out, and they were so heavy and brutal that I felt like a load of heavenly bricks was being dropped onto my head by a divine angel of Mercyful Fate. Then a year later, when I was in college with long hair that was shaved on the sides, pretending not to care what everybody thought of me while going out of my way to ensure that I was the center of attention at every waking moment, I saw Helmet live again right before Meantime came out and their new songs (complete with endless, nameless guitar solos!) bored the living daylights out of my ass.

Betty
(Interscope, 1994)

The colorful Helmet album! This is the one where they branched out, tried more light-hearted approaches to heavy music, and got reamed both critically and commercially in the process! For shame too, because aside from a few bland generiHelmetunes (okay that didn’t work), the album is as entertaining as a stacked hooker with a plate full of cocaine must be to Glenn Frey.

There’s some slide guitar blues, some jazz guitar noodlings, some funkyass groove metal, some new wave dirkxisms and lots of poppy yet heavy tunes that will have your soul a-smilin’ as your head thumps your fist. And this is good! Who needs another Meantime? If you do, check out the bland pieces of shit “Street Crab” and “Clean” to understand why they felt the need to try something different. There really are, it seems, only so many things you can do with four angry chords.

Aftertaste
(Interscope, 1997)

An odd one by the nature of its very unodditude. Betty bombed, so they decided to go back to their original rigid sound, but they’re older now with different band members who aren’t particularly angry, so the songs are very falsely dramatic and tense while coming across more like heavily-played midtempo minor-key alternative metal songs than AmRep-style noise or Meantime-style skull crushing. As such, as they themselves say in one of the songs, “It’s Easy To Get Bored” if you expect it to kick your ass. The energy isn’t there and the riffs are basically just more of what you’d expect from The Bicycle Helmets.

However, taken as a modern alternative metal record, it presents a surprising number of honestly catchy simple little chord sequences, complete with immaculate dual guitar production and a hella more vocal melodies than one would expect to appear on a Helmet record. You have to be willing to give it a chance though. Like Betty, this one takes time to grow on you.

Think Foreigner’s “Head Games” played with heavy bar chords and you’ll start to get an idea of what the album is like. Bitter and complaint-filled, but not necessarily mosh-pittingly aggressive. And a few of the songs sound completely geared towards MTV audiences (dumbed-down singalong choruses mainly). But no way did this record deserve to die the cruel, cruel death that it did. Most people don’t even know it exists!

What am I saying -- most people don’t even know that Helmet exists! Nor should they!!! DON’T TELL ANYBODY ABOUT THESE REVIEWS!!!!

Size Matters
(Interscope, 2004)

For the past several years, I have responded to the hookless downtuned chord pummeling and screaming of nu-metal with the succinct response, “Helmet did this already -- and better.” How bitter then the tears’ sting must be on the cheeks of my mind’s eye as a brand new Helmet release hits the streets and bounces tepidly to its clearly-desired place in line between Linkin Park and Korn.
The first thing to note here is that this is not a Helmet “reunion” at all. Joining the ranks of such classic piles of bullshit as Fear’s Have Another Beer With Fear and the Meat Puppets’ Golden Lies, Size Matters is an album by the band’s former lead singer and his new band -- and, just as in the case of those two earlier masterworks, odds are good that Size Matters was rejected by the record company until Page Hamilton agreed to use the name “Helmet.” Unless, of course, he presented it as a Helmet album in the first place, in which case, SHAME ON YOU, JIMMY PAGE (HAMILTON).

Helmet played mean, loud, rigid, aggressive, uncompromising, intelligent uber-grunge noise; Size Matters is generic radio-ready emo-metal. Not only does Page “Alexander” Hamilton not scream anymore -- he’s purposely adopted a higher, friendlier singing style so teenaged chicks (for example, women, or girls) will like him! What is he, 400 now? He’s old! Young people hate old people! Haven’t you seen Cocoon II: Gramps Sucks Eggs?

Most of today’s hottest gnu-metal bands are MUCH heavier than this prissy Helmet-Lite, not to mention more interesting. There’s no power in the ‘Met anymore. Just loads of simple, boring Helmet-ripoff low chord sequences followed by big bright emotional singalong choruses. As a fan of emotional chord sequences, I actually enjoy many of the choruses as a pleasure racked with guilt, stupidity, and shame. But the songs just really aren’t very creative.

The only exceptions to my rule are the first single “See You Dead,” which has a unique snuck-in extra chord in the verse and a very radio-friendly chorus, and “Surgery,” (also the name of a former AmRep bandmate of Helmet, back when they were GOOD) (Helmet, that is. Surgery were never good.) which uses a great bent string effect in the heaviness as well as a static solo. And by “static,” I don’t mean “unchanging!” The rest of the album, however, is completely static. And by “static,” I mean “if you rub your sock-clad feet all over your living room rug and then touch your finger to this CD, hopefully it will break because it’s no goddamned good.”

Monochrome
(Warcon, 2006)

This is a shout-out to Page Hamilton for replacing the little PUSSY BOYS he had in his band with REAL MEN, getting kicked off his pussyass MAJOR LABWEL, and finally returning to heavy, dark, weird, angry chord sequences. His voice isn’t as deep and grrroooovy as it used to be, but he purposely injects gravel into his higher-pitched skinny voice, and if you turn your stereo way up, you won’t be able to help but notice that this album KICKS ASS. It might as well be on AmRep, it’s so raw, heavy, pissed off, and filled with unpredictable, unorthodox chord changes. THANK YOU AGAIN, PAGE HAMILTON. THANK YOU.

Detuned guitar, lock-step heavy chords like the old Helmet. Not as thickly bassy as Meantime, but very sick chord changes, some real PISSED OFF SHIT, anger, some speed, some great great great chord changes, and Page going “graaaaaawwwww!” forcing gravel into his voice like a rockr. In addition, he ensures that the lead guitarist provides a lot of eerie, high-pitched lead guitarwork that sounds fantastic with the detuned chord lock-step anger. Very emotional note/chord high-pitched changes on top of the detuned HATE HATE HATE anger chords.

If only Helmet had been dumped from Interscope a decade ago, we wouldn’t have had to sit through frickin’ Aftertaste and asspipe Size Matters. The quality of these songs is right up there with Betty and Meantime, and the SOUND is like a follow-up to Strap It On! This is NOT radio-ready at all, even a tiny bit, except for one single song -- the title track. The rest is classic Helmet with a screamy guy on top. Great, Great, GREAT chord changes fucked all over the rhythm from downbeat to backbeat to confusing you all over, and that high-pitched emotional riffage will have you weeping to the heavens, “I LOVE YOU, PAGE HAMILTON! THANK YOU FOR RE-REALIZING YOUR MUSICAL STRENGTHS!!!”

It definitely gets weaker near the end, let’s not kid myself -- but the first seven songs are AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME Helmet compositions. Raw, heavy, loud, bitter, catchy, and gravelllllly and RAWWWRRR I’m in HELMET! Like the old days!

Thank you, Page Hamilton. I’m dead serious. Your last couple albums made me think, “What the hell happened to this guy?” But now, I’m all like, “Dude -- this is IT!!!!” So if you’re a fan of Strap It On and can deal with the idea of Page’s voice being more high-pitched than it used to do, please buy this CD. It deserves sales for its heaviness, hookiness, unorthodoxness, intelligence and evilness. RAW!!!!!

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Read Mark Prindle's reviews of ALL the Helmet records (live shows, demos, etc.).

Read the CITIZINE exclusive interview with Helmet's Page Hamilton.