HELMET – SEEING EYE
DOG (WORK SONG)
What happened
Helmet? You used to be so great, so
gnarly and heavy. In contrast the sound
on this record just reminds me of a household appliance. The vocals of Page Hamilton now sound like
the yells of an old man rocking within a wheelchair. He’s trying, he really is.
Over the years
something disheartening has happened to Helmet.
Initially they were a nasty, blunt alt rock band with noise
leanings. The manner with which they
harnessed their sound was inspiring while still being able to run with acts
such as Unsane etc despite their songs being so well defined and framed.
For a long time I have
supported and often defended the band.
Being a band that is probably too innovative for a bog standard
Kerrang/metal audience, for some reason they never quite snagged the indie
audience they probably deserved. Sure
they signed to Interscope for big bucks cashing in on the house that Kurt built
but that didn’t mean their music was without merit. Indeed those records were immense and did
slip into cliché. Fuck, even Eric
Bogosian appeared in one of their videos.
So it is with that in
mind this record is received with such disappointment. When I discovered out the blue that the band
had a new record out I immediately emailed my friend with an excited thrust of
capital letters and exclamation marks.
Unfortunately upon listening to ten tracks, I soon calmed down.
To be frank this is
not Helmet. When they split up in 1998
they should have been gone. The band
that returned in 2004 was not Helmet; it was Page Hamilton with a set of
jobbers. However in spite of that their
comeback record Size Matters was a rocker but the live show wasn’t. The band was no longer stoic, no longer
intense, no longer heavy. Instead now
appeared players too keen to please.
They were playing the classic songs but they just did not sound. And that has happened here.
Helmet were always a
band that was just heavy. They did not
require volume to shake the speakers; the mere gestures of members were dense
enough to furrow the sound. And that is
the key ingredient missing from the act these days.
Seeing Eye Dog is loud
in the sense that it is not subtle. The
lyrics are more explicitly aggressive than in the past and the plundering,
plodding manner in which the guitars rev in a straight line does feel somewhat
blind.
Perhaps it’s a
displaced record. In the song titles are
references to Algiers Los Angeles White City London
What I notice is that
there are no hooks. Another band might
be compared to Gang Of Four for making such a gesture but not here. It is still very nu metal even though the
original Helmet sound pre-dated that movement and was slightly accused of
providing the blueprints for it. A song
such as “LA Water” does sound a lot more like Deftones than Meantime-era
Helmet. And also can’t this drummer get
the John Stanier snare sound?
Of the slim pickings
of enjoyment “In Person” feels the track where it all most/best comes together
even if the guitars still do not feel hard enough but it has flow, some kind of
hook and ends with a gnarly insane scratchy solo.
Elsewhere Hamilton’s
mind appears to wander as it meanders into the ambience of “Morphing” and a
cover of the Beatles “And Your Bird Will Sing” which promptly proceeds to stick
the original tune in your head.
It ends in weird
fashion with the half decent “She’s Lost” which is another lumbering effort
with motions of noodling that works for the first three minutes before
deciding/choosing to become another song and running for six and a half minutes
royally outstaying its welcome.
How green was their
fucking valley?
Thesaurus moment:
autopilot.
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