Pop Reviews : Underground Fun From Helmet

The first thing most people seem to know about the band Helmet is that they signed to Interscope Records for, like, $12.7 billion or something, and the second is that leader Page Hamilton owns a few John Coltrane records and is not shy about talking about them.

If all you’ve done is read about the band, you might have expected them to roll up to their gig at the Whisky Tuesday in a color-coordinated set of Lamborghinis and blow through some old James White & the Blacks licks, but all fuzzed out like Nirvana . . . or at least something arty like Rush.

But Helmet, praise Ozzy, is very much an unpretentious underground band in the current mode--wildly syncopated white-noise riffs repeated endlessly, Angst -y lyrics barked out in short bursts, metallic minor-scale crunching sometimes mutating into Lynyrd Skynyrd boogie or Suicidal stomp--with little more to show from the supposed jazz influence than the occasional inspired Tony Williams fill from drummer John Stanier. At the Whisky, there was a remarkable similarity between one song and the next, heavy freakin’ grooves, except the slower, greasy ones set the slam pit into a measured, deliberate roiling, where the fast ones sent people catapulting off the Whisky stage, Doc Martens flailing in the air. This is music that can never be too loud.

Helmet’s thing might be a little in the style of other downtown New York bands like Prong, Tar and Surgery, but it’s a lot more fun.