REVIEW: Helmet, Born Annoying (Amphetamine Reptile, Europe)

- Martin Bate

Those nice folks at Amphetamine Reptile have gone and gathered together all Helmet's hard-to-get tracks from the various limited 7"s the band put out with the label between 1989 and 1993, and put them on this one handy record. Thus, we're all saved a lot of searching and a lot of money and the anally retentive elitist record collectors get slightly pissed off. This of course is a good thing, as contrary to some opinions, music is made to be heard by as many people as possible - especially when it is as good as this.

The first side is the 1989 "Born Annoying" single with two unreleased tracks from the same session. The sound is rougher and less rigid than the Helmet most of us are familiar with now with everything covered in a sheen of guitar noise. The sound is sort of art-punk, a hybrid of Sonic Youth and Big Black. "Born Annoying" itself features a bout of extended guitar abuse redolent of Thurston Moore and family while "Rumble" is a frantic chase instrumental built on a, uh, rumbling bass riff; "Shirley MacLaine" is literally one half warped drawl over disturbed rock guitar and one half speedy pop hardcore; and "Geisha to Go" is PiL meets Killing Joke and possibly the only song not immediately recognisible as Helmet. The rest are unmistakeably Helmet songs, and good ones at that, albeit without the distinctive approach which has come to be their trademark.

By 1991's "Taken", though, the all-important space between riffs has started to appear and the guitars themselves have started to sound more clipped and urgent. "Your Head" from the same year is prime Helmet, a sung-drawl over minor chords played with hardcore intensity. By "Oven" and the instrumental "No Nicky No" the final pieces of the sound are complete as the incredible, skewed sense of timing comes firmly into focus.

From 1993 there's a straight cover of Killing Joke's "Primitive" and a re-recorded version of "Born Annoying" which is nothing short of incredible. The original's noise atmosphere is replaced with the 1993-model Helmet's machine-gun precision and impossible-to-replicate timing and the pace is tweaked and the vocals intensified to complete the transition.

At 10 tracks, two of which are "Born Annoying" it's not exactly prime value for money. I could say it's 'for collectors only' but there's *way* too much good stuff on here for even the casual Helmet fan to pass by. So don't.