Nothing like music from a rainy city to set the mood for an overcast afternoon, right? Today I’m enjoying the angular cloud-bursting dynamics of Seattle post-hardcore mainstay,
Helms Alee. Helms Alee formed in 2008 and is comprised of Ben Verellen on vocals and guitar, Dana James on bass, and Hozoji Margullis on drums. They play a loose, groovy style of rust yielding metallic punk buttressed by arching supports of terse grunge and quivering sludge metal. Being from the northwest, I guess you either mix your Drive Like Jehu with Soundgarden, or you just play Soundgarden (or you don’t play anything and get a job at Amazon HQ).
Noctiluca is their fifth album and sees the band continue to maintain a solid level of energy and manicured rage through the honing of tight sheering guitars, gluey bass riffs, and duets of cleanly sung melodious female vocals and Melvins style, sky-blackening shouts. Their dynamic approach is best displayed on the shambolic drift-and-slam of the reverb wrapped “Be Rad Tomorrow.” Need more interlocking, rolling grooves? Check out the harmonic prickle and plunging grooves of “Interachnid.” Need something to sweat your angst out to? Smash play on the imposing Mastodon-esque “Lay Waste, Child” and the sludge-core knuckle-cracker “Word Problem.” Get inspired, not tired.
