Strap It On (1990)
8
Repetition / Rude / Bad Mood / Sinatra / FBLA / Blacktop
/ Distracted / Make Room / Murder
They
should've called themselves The ICBMs, because throughout their existence,
Helmet as always been one of the tightest, most precise and relentlessly rocking
bands you could find. Of course, there always were bands that were even more
extreme, but Helmet were entirely dissimilar from the start. Even though they
were/are a metal band, they didn't indulge in the genre's excesses, preferring
a very simple image instead. They looked like regular guys, behaved like regular
guys (as far as I could tell, that is) and dressed like regular guys. But
that wall of sound was so intense it occasionally became a frightening grind.
They were a metal band for people that hated metal. They were the anti-AC/DC,
had no soul and no swing, but their massive riffs boasted a clinical
groove that would qualify as the ultimate work-out music. Songs like "Bad
Mood," "Repetition" and "FBLA" were driven by propulsive, in-your-face riffs,
and with Page Hamilton's drill sergeant barking on top of it, it was the ultimate
hate-music. Believe me, Helmet is great when you're 17, pissed-off
and madly in anger with the world. Whereas most bands are easily situated
in the grand scheme, the history of rock 'n' roll, Helmet were only vaguely
related to other genres, bands and styles. They were a bit reminiscent of
The Melvins sometimes, or The Jesus Lizard, or Prong and probably owed some
to minimalist industrial music and Steve Albini's abrasive noise projects,
but ultimately, they were always leaders, not followers, and had become a
trendsetting band by the time they released their second album in 1992. The
rather scruffy production is both an advantage and a disadvantage. With its
lack of melodies and obsession with tense riffs, Strap It On probably
sounded like an exhausting exercise in monotony, but that's also the secret
of their success. They rocked like they meant it and all the barking, relentless
pounding, rhythms and counter-rhythms ensured the album was one huge sonic
blast. It sounded simple, but it wasn't (enough people tried to master the
complicated way of playing and never succeeded) and Hamilton's classic jazz
training enabled him to lay down guitar parts few other guitarists could come
up with. The rest of the band was equally impressive, as Henry Bogdan (bass),
Peter Mengede (guitar) and John Stanier (who is now in Tomahawk, on drums),
delivered the goods like a hi-tech machine, brutal and devoid of frills. Because
of its nature, it's pretty hard to distinguish some songs from one another
(each time I listen to it, I only know three or four by name), but easy stand-outs
are the start-stop violence of "Bad Mood" (appropriate title), "Repetition"
(classic intro), "Sinatra" (a sickeningly slow grind) and the militaristic
stomp of "Blacktop," which - like "FBLA" - already hints at the slightly (very
slightly) different approach of Meantime. If you previously liked heavy
metal because it sounded like sped-up blues music to you, because you dug
the lightning-fast solos, because of the hairdos or if it helped you to get
it on with the ladies, then Helmet is not for you. On the other hand: if you
are single (or a relationship that's going downhill really fast) and have
a weakness for brutal, ugly music that's the ideal soundtrack for those moments
when you feel like smashing your fists against the wall and scream out rage
and frustration I<>and have a sense of rhythm to boot, they're required
listening. You'll LOVE 'em!
Meantime (1992)
8
In the Meantime / Ironhead / Give It / Unsung / Turned
Out / He Feels Bad / Better / You Borrowed / FBLA II / Role Model
Aaaahhh,
those teenage memories. Heavy pettin', wild parties, experimenting with drugs,
using dad's car for a ride, staying out late, vomiting all over the carpet…
uhm… Wait a minute, that's not right! That's not what my wonder years
were like. It was more about banging a fist against the wall, not having the
guts to say a word to that girl and locking myself up in my room with
angry music and even more depressing books. Dark, rigidly militaristic noise,
brutal riffs, no pussyfooting, barked vocals. That kind of cheerful stuff.
Bands like Helmet. Actually, I also listened to softer stuff, but Helmet really
did the trick in 1992. I've lightened up in the meantime, tip-toeing through
the tulips on a regular basis, but about half of this album still gives me
a mental hard-on, makes the hairs on my arms rise and the muscles (where,
where?) tensed. Basically, Helmet economical metal didn't change that much
since the release of debut album Strap It On, as it's still tight as
fuck here, anti-rock 'n' roll characterised by staccato riffs and awkward
rhythms, but it has also become a bit more (yes, even more) disciplined.
The debut has several moments where the band indulged in a noisy racket without
a sense of direction, but Meantime is completely devoid of excess fat.
The debut was a bit like Sylvester Stallone in First Blood: switching
from controlled intensity to boundless/directionless anger in a split-second.
This one feels more like Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV (well, just forget
the part about him getting beaten up, will you): cold, rock-hard, inflexible,
regimented and extremely effective. Like a modernist building. It was released
on a major label (Interscope/Warner), so it's more polished than its predecessor,
but it certainly made enough impact for me at the time. And too much to make
me believe they actually sold over a million copies of it.
Nowadays, Meantime's first half still stands as their most impressive twenty minutes of charged metal. How the album opens with a cacophony of sounds (drum salvos, frantic distortion, pounding bass) that announces a world war, then retreats for a while and next bursts into one of the coolest metal riffs of the 90's. The song was recorded by Steve Albini and it definitely makes sense, as it's propelled by an almost mechanical tightness and cruel force that's out to crush your skull. With Hamilton's incoherent, randomly placed lyrics on top of it ("Help me spread right / Ash is / Cow fertilized" - come again?), it's still the essential Helmet song, capturing their essence (up to that point, at least) in 188 seconds and generating enough power to illuminate a football stadium for a night or two. There's nothing as mean as that song to be found here, but why complain when you get the immediately recognisable stop & start-exercise of "Unsung," which features surprisingly melodic vocals; the strangled crunch of "Turned Out" or the headbangfest of "Ironhead" with its repetitive, hypnotic riffing. More satisfactory grind comes in the way of the crawling "Better" with its awkward rhythmic shifts and "FBLA II," which is an improvement of #1 on Strap It On. Despite the fact that these songs still do the trick, the test of time has also proven that not everything here was as effective, as some of the material already sounds a bit second hand. While no pussy music by any means, the slow "He Feels Bad" and the visionary alt-metal of "You Borrowed" (which boasts shifts and chord progressions that would be copied by legions of bands) don't really live up to the high quality of the best songs, just like the song that ends the album on a bit of a disappointing note (or fading feedback). Looking back from 2005, Meantime hardly packs the same punch as a whole and it's a pity they didn't succeed in keeping it a relentless 37-minute blast, but the album still stands apart from the pack no matter how many bands tried to emulate the band's style or recycled it in a more nu-metal oriented direction. You can't beat the original, can you?
Betty (1994)
6
Wilma's Rainbow / I Know / Biscuits for Smut / Milquetoast / Tic
/ Rollo / Street Crab / Clean / Vaccination / Beautiful Love / Speechless
/ The Silver Hawaiian / Overrated / Sam Hell
Uh…
I really used to like this one right after it came out, but nowadays I don't
remember why. It's certainly not a catastrophic failure or anything - many
fans (where are they now?) seemed to treasure this one in particular
- but for me the magic was gone by 1994. It was an electrifying band when they
still had the filth from the noisy Amphetamine Reptile-stable sticking to
their bodies, but then there suddenly was an entire generation of alt-metal
bands - Helmet, Biohazard, Life of Agony, etc - playing bigger and bigger
venues with the right attitude, but the early rawness wasn't there anymore.
Guitarist Peter Mengede got replaced by Rob Echevarria in the meantime, but
that probably didn't explain this disappointment. If anything, it's probably
because of the diluted approach, a tendency to (consciously or not) tell themselves
and the audience there was more to them than just those ultra-tight brutal
riffs and barked/screamed commands. By result, Betty was by far their
most accessible album yet, and a release that in retrospect would be considered
to have been quite influential on a new generation of alt-metal bands discovering
a hybrid of punk/metal and, unfortunately also the much-ridiculed 'nu-metal'
of the past few years. The tight riffs, alternation of pounding metal-verses
and melodic choruses, catchy and often 'treated' vocals and that peculiar
drum sound (the snare!), they've been copied to death the past decade, for
better or worse. Betty has a few good songs, but three memorable cuts
out of 14 really isn't enough for a band that once seemed to suggest they
weren't merely intense, but intensity itself.
It's hard not to be impressed by the huge sound of "Wilma's Rainbow," and so far, it's a nice continuation of the Meantime-style, albeit with a more prominent bass and Hamilton's surprisingly laidback spoken-sung nonsense (I honestly can't make sense of two thirds of his lyrics). After that, "I Know" serves as the more abrasive counterpart, since it's triggered by an equally brutal riff but more hostile vocals. Most of the remaining songs follow either of these directions: they're tight and surprisingly melodic, or they're tight and vaguely melodic. Some of these tracks get away with it ("Milquetoast," "Tic," "Vaccination"), yet others sound too derivative or just uninspired ("Rollo," Overrated"). "Biscuits for Smut" is a bit of a special one, given a more bass-heavy sound and the fashionably treated vocals, but I've never understood why it became such a fan favorite. To further stress that they could do more than cleave, hammer, crash & burn, Betty also includes a few out-of-step tracks: there's the brief jazz-turns-to-noise of "Beautiful Love," a funky (gasp!) jam "The Silver Hawaiian" and the closing "Sam Hell," which is an acoustic/electric blues. The inclusion of these cuts wouldn't have been a problem if they'd been scattered all over the album and had been an integral part of the band's sound palette, but because they're all placed towards the end of the album and come off as merely genre exercises, their presence is rather unnecessary and probably the result of them being hesitant to include 'only' brutal noise. That's too bad and once more goes to show that bands with a very specific style often have problems if they're trying to expand upon that sound gradually. Betty probably sounds pretty amazing if it's where you started off your Helmet-collection, but when you further explore the band's catalogue, it won't take you long to realize that the real deal is to be found on the band's first two records.
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