Heading down to The Corner to see Helmet, my expectations were pretty high. In the early 90’s Helmet helped to change the face of heavy music with their dropped tuning and reliance on dissonant chords and strong grooves over the speed and excessiveness of the late 80’s thrash and glam metal. This helped to pave the way for a new wave of bands, with Helmet’s influence being seen in anyone from Korn and Limp Bizkit, to Tool and Deftones, to silverchair and Incubus. Even though this was not the “real” Helmet (the original band parted ways in 1998 before singer/guitarist Page Hamilton resurrected the name with new members in 2004, and has been joined by three new players again since then), I was still expecting a very tight show at the least.
If it’s a sure bet that you’d find a Helmet CD in the collections of any of those bands mentioned above, it’s also a sure bet you’d find most of those bands in the collections of opening act Rook. While this four-piece were very tight and certainly enthusiastic, they were somewhat lacking in originality. Their sound at times drew on early Incubus, with atmospheric guitar phrases and some nice bass work, but would all too often veer towards the simple power choruses which have been worked to death by bands like Evanescence and Linkin Park. The singer had a decent voice during some of the quieter moments, but again when he pushed himself in the choruses to be earnest and emotional he’d just end up sounding like the guy from Nickleback. In fact that was my lasting impression of this band – Evanescence fronted by the guy from Nickleback.
The Nation Blue were a different matter altogether. Although there were shades of late 80’s punk, indie rock and art rock, something about the way they put it all together created something new which really saw them hold their own in such a metal environment. Although probably the least likely band of the night to be classified as metal, their brute force gave them all the heaviness they needed. Guitars were thrown, lyrics were yelled and an exciting mix of feedback, noise and music created some great songs and a powerful performance. Almost as if on cue the guitarist’s strap broke as he sung a line about these broken guitars getting old, and how white noise no longer heals the soul. But the white noise they produced certainly had me feeling better.
Then came Helmet. If I had to settle on one word to describe this performance it would unfortunately be “disappointing”. Helmet in the 90’s was a music force to be reckoned with. Four people creating a sound that no one had heard before and forging their own path. In the eight years they were gone, that sound became the standard and as mentioned before was worked to death by imitators and those who imitated the imitators. While this is not Helmet’s fault, their sound just isn’t as fresh in 2007 as it was in 1993. Watching the 2007 version of Helmet, it seemed Hamilton may have done better to let sleeping dogs lie. The rest of the band is now made up of a much younger group of guys who weren’t able to hold their place. While young blood can be a good thing (Hamilton himself often made reference to his own age, saying some of the breaks between songs were because he was 46 and needed to catch his breath), the tight performance and intensity I expected from a Helmet show just wasn’t there. I felt like I was watching a bunch of kids live out their dreams of playing with their idol instead of a band who were determined to create their own road. At least the 2004 version of Helmet had Frank Bello from Anthrax and John Tempesta from White Zombie around to keep things exciting and lend some experience to proceedings. Songs from 2006’s Monochrome album had a few fans leaving the mosh pit, who could only be coaxed back by classic songs such as Wilma’s Rainbow and In the Meantime. The fact that they held off Unsung (the breakthrough track from 1992’s Meantime album) until the final song of the encore suggests that even Hamilton knew why people were really there. My final thought of the night? Helmet were a great band in 1994.
(Originally published on FasterLouder)
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