Helms Alee - Night Terror

After an opening track awash in fuzzy bass, surf-pysch guitars, and constantly rolling drum beat that lulls you into a false sense of security, you will be smashed by full-on in the face by "A New Roll." The weird thing is this bludgeoning won't leave you in a hospital bed for days on end because this song hits like a cartoon anvil, not the real-deal, tooth-shattering iron kind, and that may not be a bad thing. See, "A New Roll," like much of Night Terror, and much of Hyrda Head's roster, plays with the idea of heavy music. Yeah, these guys may have listened to Sabbath or Priest growing up, but they probably also listened to Zappa and Floyd, or even Dick Dale and the Beatles. The result is moments of typical face-melting madness and chest-rumbling low end being bookended by pyschadelic soundscapes and downright pop moments. Yep, I said it; pop moments. See after about three minutes of pensive noodling, crushing barages and grunted male vocals, "A New Roll suddenly shifts to melodic note-picking and a female singer that sounds like the voice of the Sirens suddenly cutting through the storm of the century. The fuzzy bass and A.D.D.-styled drums may still be in the background, but this is a downright beautiful moment.

The remainder of Night Terror works in much the same way. The band will fire off the sort of massive, yet melodic, riffing you might expect from label mates Torche, but then they will tell you everything's going to be okay with some harmonized vocals and shimmery pastoral passages. And while many bands have tweaked "heavy" in the past, or mashed together various genres like some kind of sonic Frankenstien, what makes Helms Alee different is that all of elements they mix into their stew taste right upon completion. Nothing feels totally forced or "hey, wouldn't it be weird if..." Instead you get a sense that this band knows what they love and loves what they know. There are disparate elements at play here, but they mesh exceedingly well. Just listen to the sludgy battle cry chorus of "A Weirding Away" and how it seamlessly shifts into a haunting trip through an enchanted forest where an angelic choir hums over the softly plucked notes of some weary troubadour. Meanwhile "Grandfather Claws" opens with an echoing guitar line before moving into a plodding journey through low-end muck ridden by some vocals akin to The Breeders. "Paraphrase" goes even another route by using some post-rock dynamics to build to a what sounds like a slowed down version of a High on Fire track.

All these twists and turns and slaps upside the head are intriguing and fun, but if Night Terror suffers from anything it is long song lengths. When Helms Alee find a riff they like, they ride it out, and that is not always the best idea. Sometimes songs that were interesting amalgamations of melody and brutality suddenly become drone experiments gone wrong, or jams with pieces that are way too simplistic to be called "jams." Bands like Isis may be able to extend moments as a way of building tension, but Helms Alee merely repeat a hard-rock phrase until it goes from being a headbanging moment to a soar neck moment. Experimentation is good, guys, sometimes you just need to make it happen sooner.