Helmet, Pangaea @ Manning Bar,Sydney (24/06/11)

Wed 6th Jul, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Page Hamilton has given a lot to the post hardcore scene, without actually doing much. His sound isn’t very complicated, but still pretty distinguishable from the masses. A fat lazy down tempo punk pastiche with drop-d tuning and a solid rhythm section provides the canvas on which he scrapes out a few bristling riffs for three or four minutes. Repeat. Nothing too complex, but then again a punch in the face doesn’t have too many elements to it either. You can hear his sound (and let’s face it – it is his sound, not his band’s) in many other pretty big alt rock bands of the last 20 years: Korn, Limp Bizkit, Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down, and countless garage projects during high school. The show on Friday was a fairly decent throwback to the simplified brutality of Helmet’s musical heyday, and it was nice to see them again.

Brisbane’s Pangaea had the honours of opening, and what blew everyone away was their drummer, Dave Atkins, who completely made off with the evening like a bandit. I was sure I hadn’t seen them play before – I would certainly remember this stocky animal’s herculean efforts. Massive crash cymbals showered over gigantic kick patterns and machine gun rolls. His precision was spot on and he slipped in and out of different time signatures and tempos at will, whilst smartly avoiding showy gimmicks. Ben Ely and Jim Sinclair provided fairly simple chord progressions over the top and some rudimentary vocals added a human element, but Atkins’ drumming was on another level entirely. It felt like he was a gigantic and highly coordinated game fish thrashing about on the floor of a tiny boat, furiously beating out the last angry moments of life. Truly awesome to watch!

Helmet’s set opened up with She’s Lost from their recent album Seeing Eye Dog. The record’s not bad but they’re not really stretching themselves anymore. Thundering riffs and simple rhythms pound out most of the night at the same tempo, with maybe old favourite Rollo shaking things up a bit. Despite the simplicity of the material he was working with drummer Kyle Stevenson was committed 120%, heavy on the kicks and bashing holes in the snare.

Dan Beeman didn’t have to do much apart from maintain a good level of energy and push the melodies along, which he did, and his guitar work was fine. It’s not too demanding rearranging the same three or four chords all night. Page Hamilton though was so great to watch, really showing his chops. He’s had classical training (recall his jazz cover spaz-out on Betty) and he employs it so effectively in live sets. Page pushed himself, exploring some interesting sounds and really worked his guitar. He can still shred, offering some excellent solos as well as the more textural stuff.

It was a pretty full set, dipping into a few albums. They waded through the sludge of their latest, punched out some of the classic stuttering post hardcore of their iconic Meantime album ( Ironhead sounded lean and hungry), and excellent closing number Milqtoast just ripped right through us. It was interesting hearing such a diverse set, being able to examine their career in one concise package. Their style is unmistakable, and from album to album, despite the constant personnel changes and trends being formed and dissolved around them, their core sound is nothing if not consistent. They’ve still got it in spades.