It’s high time we sat down and talked about Helmet. First off, they are probably one of the more important heavy bands on the planet when it comes to talking about the development of movements such as “post” or Nu-Metal or alternative or grunge or really anything that’s on the experimental, forward-thinking line of heavy music. And the best part is: you don’t have to like any of those previously mentioned sub-genres to love Helmet. Because I certainly don’t like Nu-Metal but I absolutely love Helmet. So for today’s retrospective we discuss an all-time classic: Helmet’s 1992 release Meantime.
I got to thinking about Helmet last week when the entire #MetalBandcampGiftClub thing took off. I was asked by Bandcamp Blog where my roots in metal come from. It’s a really great question. In fact, it’s one that I ask every single person that we feature in our weekly profiles. Shockingly, while I think about music 24/7 and am constantly making and updating lists to keep my head straight, I have never actually thought about going back to my beginning. As I said in the aforementioned Bandcamp article, I was fortunate to have older brothers that weren’t that cool. Aside from being uncool they were also significantly older than me. I have previously discussed how those knuckleheads got me into Sisters of Mercy at a young age. Similarly, it was they who inspired me to explore Metallica at the tender age of nine. But, I had to ask myself, what was the moment that I truly arrived as a metal fan. When did I actually make an honest decision, not influenced by my heroic older brothers, in which I decided that metal was right for me?
That moment came in 1992. I was eleven years old and attending Gallup Hill Elementary School in Ledyard, CT. I wouldn’t say my friends were “cool” but we managed to get by and learn a thing or two (when we weren’t playing Dungeons & Dragons or getting bitten by snakes in the woods). I recall my friend Mason, who was my physical doppelgänger, handing me a tape. Now, he had previously handed me tapes like Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen but none of those (even when Bon Jovi was confiscated) effected me like the tape he handed me that day. I recall taking Helmet’s Meantime home after school. Excitedly dropping it into the left deck of my portable, dual-cassette player with a blank tape on the right. I simultaneously pushed record and play and changed my entire future.
Musically, at the time I was heavily entranced by jazz. I was not only listening to it on a consistent basis I was playing it. So, in an attempt to learn and get better I was pouring through the history of jazz. In a social sense, I was just learning how to hate mainstream music. Essentially, learning to be a judgmental prick. Try as I might, there was nothing negative to be said about Meantime. To this day I cannot find one single flaw on the album. Even the snare drum, tuned absurdly tight for my taste, fits perfectly with the other instrumentation. The staccato riffs combined with the almost sing-song vocals created an atmosphere that was at once angry yet completely accessible.
Page Hamilton’s musical training in jazz, although technically subdued throughout Meantime, shines through with excellent musicianship and use of both complex rhythms and space. Helmet would, of course, go on to highlight their jazz background as soon as their next full-length, Betty (released in 1994). But on Meantime the band was not yet ready to step outside their comfort zone, which was largely framed with grunge, at the time. The album is a huge step forward from Strap It On which was a more raw, unpolished and mid-heavy recording. Meantime features some highly melodic solos that hint at the sea of talent that lies beneath. But the album is more an experiment in tenacity with its halting rhythms and jaunted guitar progressions.
Meantime was recorded in two months primarily at Fun Time Studioes in NYC (with the exception of “In the Meantime” which was recorded prior at Chicago Recording Company in Chicago, IL). All tracks were produced by the one and only Steve Albini (with some help from the band members). And his influence is clearly recognizable across the jagged edges of the rhythm guitar across Meantime. A fun note is that the album was remixed by Andy Wallace who was unhappy with Albini’s mix. It was Wallace’s taste for a cleaner sound that led to the tight sounding snare drum on the final mix. The engineering was handled by Wharton Tiers who was awarded his gold record for Meantime in 1993.
Meantime is, for good reason, Helmet’s most successful album to date. While the band has never shied away from being experimental, and has, much to their credit and raw musical success, never actively sought fame, Meantime is their only Gold record to date. It even garnered the number one slot on The Heatseekers Chart of 1992 and topped out at number sixty-eight on the Billboard Top 200. The album is, for many, a personal milestone in traversing the sodden, swampy landscape of heavy music. It is, for me, probably the single most important album in the history of my obsession with heavy music.
– Manny-O-War
Nine Circles 