Disco de Helmet: “Meantime”

Strange....I keep reading all of these references to Helmet being the originators of nu-metal yet, when this album was released, the concept of nu-metal had not yet even begun to brew inside the mind of some soulless marketing executive, itching to brandish a newer and more simplistic sound to attract the masses with a short attention span. One can certainly make a path from Helmet to the spawn of nu-metal that followed a few years later if they felt so inclined but if you dig a little deeper, nu-metal only shares the most basic traits with this band that offered so much more to anyone who cared to listen.

In some ways, it almost seems strange to slap the "metal" tag on a band like Helmet. Sure, they wrote this album that is bludgeoningly heavy with songs that would blow your head clean off your body from the outset but beyond that, Helmet shared little with the dyed-in-the-wool metal bands from the early 1990's.

I suppose that this is where the whole nu-metal tag comes in, due to the nu-metal kingpins to follow utilizing the stop-start riffing that Helmet mastered out of the gate. However, those comparisons end when you get into these songs.

Unlike Korn and Deftones that followed, Helmet combined that riffing style with head-snapping time changes, absolutely monster grooves and a strange combination of vast musical influence filtered through a seemingly minimalist approach, all of this done with no use of samples, rapping or tortured soul gimmicks. Helmet was strictly about the music.

Maybe this is why their flirtation with the mainstream didn't last. They had nothing by way of gimmicks to offer the growing number of angst-filled teens that were a year or so away from the transition from grungy teen to Johnathan Davis impersonator. For those (and there are many of them) always on the hunt for the next fad to grasp onto for lack of true identity, Helmet provided those of us looking for music with substance an album that still could blow us away almost 15 years after it appeared on store shelves. "Meantime" is precisely that album.

When this record came out I was a 11-12 year old metal head. I listend mainly to thrash/heavy metal bands like slayer, megadeth, metallica etc. One day I saw a video by a band called Helmet on tv and was amazed by the chrushing, monotonous, sound they made (especially because the guys in the band looked wierd...wierd meaning normal, average, looking people with crewcuts).

I bought the CD and was actually kind of disappointed by the way it sounded. I remember that I thought that Page's song was too melodic and weak.

But after I played it a couple of times I grew to like it, and later on...love it. Basically, Helmet changed my whole view of (heavy) music and indirectly because of them i later got into everything from hardcore punk to jazz.

To this day I still listen to it and regard it as one of my favourite albums of all times (and music genres). Sadly, people who comment on this brilliant band generally have the tendency of comparing them to other metal (especially [bad] nu-metal or "rap-metal") bands which i think is out of line. Helmet were trailblazers and they truly stand alone.

Maybe if you just listen to the witty & sarcastic lyrics, the monotonous trainlike precision of the heavy, yet minimalistic, drum beat & the guitars swarming like angry bees you too will figure that out one day.

Meantime captures Helmet in their prime, do yourself a favor and check it out!

The band that started it all, based out of NYC, of course.

Often imitated (I believe Pantera admitted that "Walk" was influenced by Helmet's "Unsung"), poorly duplicated.

As hardcore & heavy as it gets with fantastic riffs & without sounding amateurish. Supa-dupa tight, D-tuned guitars, phenomenal drumming.

Listen to the opening assault of "He Feels Bad". does it get any better? Puh-leez!

As a reviewer once stated, Helmet makes Metallica sound like The Archies. Believe it.

First of all contrary to what one reviewer said Helmet were not just rich kids who started a band one day. Guitarist/singer Page Hamilton was trained in jazz and played with Glenn Branca's Guitar Symphony and the Band of Susans. Bassist Henry Bogden is a classicaly trained bassist who also plays guitar, drums and lap steel. Drummer John Stainer is a veteren of the Florida death metal scene so obiviously he knows his way around the kit. Just because the songs are simple doesn't mean that they know nothing about their instruments. If you are going to give the history of the band at least do your homework.

Back to the music Helmet is a band that doesn't try to dazzle you with thier technical abilities but that doesn't mean they are non-existant. The repetition in some of their riffs are built to create tension and not because they have no idea of what

This is a very influential album. Many of the bands out there today would not be anywhere if not for thier copy of Meantime.

This band is really an intelligent band,because they can incorpoate musical factors,such as HARDCORE,THRASH,JAZZ,METAL SOUND into their own sound.Their beat is strict in a sense that the time is rigid & more machine-oriented.Their achievement was that they built a massive ,sonic architecture that can penetrate our souls straight through.Buy this CD NOW !