-Decibel - Jan. 2010
7/10 Rating
The Helm - Home - Hex Records"A veritable pedigree from triple H"
When I received "Home", by The Helm, my stream of consciousness went: "Helm. Home. Helmet, Dome? Like getting head!" But I can't write the same review twice, and "Decibel" already has constant references to fellatio throughout.
The Helm's new album, "Home", immediately sounds like its influences. Let's just say they're being a bit -ahem- neurotic, because their hero is gone, who had a certain type of dysentery, if you take my meaning. It rides the endless fine line of "how much is too much" and then "who gives a shit?" Crusty fucking metallic-hardcore strikes again. It's exactly what they wanted, an it's exactly what the damn kids wanted, so who's bitching? It's all well-executed, and even when it's predictable, it's still jarring.
The rhythm section gets particular props on this album. Sprinkled everywhere like jimmies on a doughnut are heaving basslines and frantic sticking. Tracks like "Unam Sanctum," "New Favorite" and "Digits" stay dynamic with fat-bottomed fills or low-end riffing. The intro to "Book Club" is a clinic of fire-panic drumming, and cuts like "The Gate" stay afloat because of interesting rolls and pounds.
And when "Home" doesn't shine, it at least serves you up the status quo. Distorted guitars: noisy and dissonant, but often taking a backseat. Mean vocals: low screaming at a nice spot in the mix. Tortured backups: on tracks like "Gun as Gavel." Angry lyrics: standard anti-religious, anti-government, anti-corporate. Random spoiler: the last track has a fake-out ending.
-Frank Lemke
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PunkNews.org - Dec. 2009
3.5/4 RatingThe Helm do right by way of fierce, crusty hardcore, the kind nurtured and nuzzled by a wealth of His Hero Is Gone followers this past decade. Home feels just like that -- an oddly comfortable setting of familiar aggression and restrained rawness. (And it is just me, or do bands of this variety have a certain fondness for using this as a title?)
Home blows by in quite a rush, too, with nine of the 10 tracks here averaging a shade over two minutes per. You have to look for the slower, more lurching parts like the droning pounds that open "The Gate" or the lumbering finish to "A Few Days Ago," with moments like these helping to break up the otherwise insistent onslaught the Helm seem to have...well, helmed. Closer "Boarded Up" proves this method well, unwinding in a demonic, slightly sludgy fashion ("This is coming apart!!").
Some more distinct, abrupt tempo-changing riffs come into play for "Because We Can," which is also one of the more anthemic centerpieces to Home. Frontman Bob Swift gets a little more adventurous with his bellowing howl ("We build high. / We ride on. / We burn bright. / Because we can."), and that helps, too.
These Arms Are Snakes Chris Common handled the recording here and blesses the band with a necessarily gritty yet comprehensible sound, just as he's done with other excellently heavy releases.
Overall, a fine sophomore LP from the northwest quartet.
-submitted by Brian
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PastePunk.com - Nov. 2009Washington’s THE HELM (ex-UNDERTOW) have put together Home, their second full-length and first for Hex Records. Describing their doomy hardcore sound isn’t the easiest, but it the low-end thump it is like hearing the beleaguered grunts of a snowplow after it has smashed into a parked sedan. It ain’t pretty. For a ten song release that only runs about 24 minutes, Home does a lot of switching back and forth between high speed mashery and dour, plodding chugs and off-time drumming. The apocalyptic atmospherics work in the band’s favor, especially on the rip-roaring finale “Boarded Up,” but it’s hard to get a comfortable grip on the full-length as it moves from song to song. Coarsely growled lead vocals support THE HELM’s intensity, but no song in particular stands out vocally. The smoldering timbers of guitars and sinister “clishes” of cymbals harden the band’s isolated, last-stand aesthetic, and though I have nothing truly negative to say about Home, it’s a jagged-edge recording that puts up a lot of walls against common replay.
-submitted by Jordan
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