Yes, I Still Do Write About Music...Occasionally

I sort of fell off the bandwagon with my writing over the last 6 months...my last stint as News Editor kind of took a lot out of me.

That said, here is the first article I've written in months, a short feature on Seattle's Helms Alee for What's Up Magazine.

Helms Alee
Crushing Skulls

By Taylor Scaggs

The media exposure of the Seattle music scene in the last year is unlike anything we’ve seen since the early 90’s. While it’s always been a flourishing creative mecca, bands like the Fleet Foxes, with their debut album, have single handily put Seattle back on the map as a buzz worthy music town, and rightfully so. A hearkening back to traditional folk and hymn’s is just the tip of the iceberg as to where Seattle bands ventured last year though, and nothing can express that more than a band whose curious moniker is old sailor terminology for “duck!”

Helms Alee’s 2008 debut Night Terror is a blast to the ass of every other metal album put out last year, and will most likely go under the radar as one of the freshest and most promising Seattle debuts in recent memory. Comprised of seasoned veterans, guitarist/vocalist Ben Verellen (Harkonen, Roy, These Arms are Snakes), bassist/vocalist Dana James and drummer/vocalist Hozoji Matheson-Margullis (Lozen), Helms is truly a sum of its parts.

After a few EPs, the band recorded Night Terror in Ballard last winter. Produced, engineered and mixed by Matt Bayles (who has worked with the likes of Narrows, Minus the Bear, Isis and Mastodon) was released on Hydra Head records in August.

“We wanted to get [Night Terror] out without dwelling to hard on the details,” Verellen said. “We’re pretty much shooting from the hip as far as how we come across.”

Verellen’s assessment of the band, and the album, is overwhelmingly modest and humble. Night Terror soars across the playing field of influences and sounds, and calling it simply a metal album is doing it, and the band, an extreme disservice. Songs like “A New Roll” tumble through dreamy melodies that are juxtaposed amongst Verellen’s commanding hazy raspy shouts and crushing riffs along James’ and Hoz’s gleaming harmonizing. The harmonizing, and the vocals in general, are one of the first things that readily stand out on first listen. They lend themselves strikingly well to the album’s optimistically spacious and gloomy tones and sets their sound apart from other bands of a remotely similar ilk.

Then there are songs like “Big Spider,” a sludgy, doomy, stoner stew akin to Houdini era Melvins, and Russian Circles. Trying to pigeonhole Helms Alee into any one of these genres though is too difficult. That is what makes them so great, they truly embrace them all, and make them into their own completely refreshing brand of loud, crushing instrumentation. Something only bands like fellow Hydra Head mates Torche have been able to pull off recently.

“I feel really good about how the record came out,” Verellen said. “I try not to think too hard about what influences creep in, otherwise you start second guessing just about everything.”

Having played with Harkonen at the 3B Showoff several times, Verellen said he knows playing in Bellingham is always a fun… and painful experience. The band recently played a show with our own Black Eyes and Neckties at the Comet, and was on tour with Minus the Bear last year. Word is Helms Alee’s live shows are a site to behold, and as of what to expect from their upcoming show in Bellingham, Verellen simply remarked, “riffs.”

Helms Alee will perform at Cap Hansen’s on Saturday, Jan. 31. For more about the band, visit [http://www.myspace.com/helmsaleemusic ]

Something I didn't write about in the story was that Verellen also is in the business of making his own custom amplifiers. Check them out, as they look pretty damn cool.

www.verellenamplifiers.com
www.myspace.com/verellenamplifiers