HELMET Strap It On LP

HELMET Strap It On LP

__________________________________________________________
(Let Them Eat Vinyl)
*** This is a new and unplayed item, direct from the CRUCIAL BLAST shop. ***

DESCRIPTION FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
As far as my own collection goes, Helmet's catalog starts with Strap It On and ends with Meantime; to my ears, the band never recaptured the power of these first two records after their move to the majors and the various stylistic and tonal shifts that have occurred over the course of their twenty-plus year existence. Albums like Betty might have garnered a good bit of positive press from rock crit circles and expanded on their sound in interesting ways, but their early work (and especially Meantime) still stand as some of the heaviest, most abrasive (and yet most accessible) noise rock of that era. It's been close to twenty years since either of these seminal albums have been available on vinyl, but British reissue label Let Them Eat Vinyl stepped in recently to present both Strap It On and Meantime in new high quality 180 gram reissues, packaged in heavy gatefold sleeves with the original artwork and album design intact (all the way down to the original typos).
1990's Strap It On was a motherfucking beast when it first appeared on the Amphetamine Reptile label (later to be re-released by major label Interscope), a monstrously percussive sludge rock assault laced with black veins of discordant hardcore, massive noise-damaged grooves informed by the harder fringes of the New York pigfuck gutter, and one of the most punishing dual-guitar assaults heard up to that point. Revisiting this album more than two decades later, Strap It On still sounds monstrous, from the opening stop/start lurch of "Repetition"'s angular hardcore to the mechanized pummel that follows on "Rude", the band employs huge droning riffs and weird time signatures that immediately put the listener off-balance as they bludgeon you with their deceptively simple stripped-down riffing and tightly wound rhythmic tension. With these sheets of droning dissonant guitar noise, the huge lumbering mechanistic riffs and the crushing lockstep ugliness of songs like "FBLA", it sort of feels like Hamilton and crew were exploring a similar post-industrial headspace that the guys in Godflesh were doing around the same time, stripping away all of the excess from the rock band set-up to reveal a hulking percussive machine-music that feels more like the pneumatic crush of factory equipment than rock songwriting. That's not to say that Helmet didn't write some catchy fuckin' songs, though; songs like "Bad Moon" and the brooding "Sinatra" are totally infectious noise-rock bruisers, with dissonant but catchy hooks that collide with the squalls of feedback and atonal soloing, drawing a bit of melodic influence from old Killing Joke. It's also interesting to note how the almost Sabbathian sludgy crush of songs like "Blacktop" and "Make Room" basically foreshadowed the whole Buzzoven / Eyehategod swamp sludge sound that would start to spread later in the following decade. Both of Helmet's first two albums had a major influence on extreme metal that we're still feeling today, and with Strap It On now reissued in vinyl, it's the perfect opportunity for fans of noise rock, sludge rock, extreme metal and avant-heaviness to discover (or re-discover) one of the heaviest, most crucial albums from this era of underground American music. © CRUCIAL BLAST
THIS IS A NEW, UNPLAYED ITEM. Please note that for LP vinyl orders, we usually remove the vinyl from the jacket prior to shipment in order to avoid seam splits or any other kind sleeve/jacket damage that might occur during transit. This may require that we open the shrinkwrap on the record in order to carefully remove the vinyl from the inside of the jacket (if the record was originally shrinkwrapped). Feel free to contact us with any questions regarding this policy.

Crucial Blast is an independant underground label, online shop and micro-press specializing in cutting edge, transgressive, experimental heavy music and related cultural artifacts, with a particular focus on avant-metal, black noise/industrial, dark ambience, infernal psychedelia, and hardcore improv/free-jazz. You'll find everything from art-damaged European metalcore to amplifier-exploding psychedelic drones to earth-shaking post-Ayler destructo-jazz in our listings, which we update roughly every two weeks with both brand new releases and rare finds from the vaults.

ALL REVIEWS FROM CRUCIAL BLAST ARE THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY OF CRUCIALBLASTSHOP.NET., AND ARE NOT TO BE REPRINTED, REWRITTEN, OR BORROWED IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM CRUCIAL BLAST. COPYRIGHT 2000-2013. ::: SHIPPING AND PAYMENT INFO :::

Payment for your order is expected within SEVEN DAYS from the end of auction/buy it now purchase. Our turnaround time for orders is listed at 3 days, but we usually ship within 24 hours of receiving your order.

WE DO COMBINE SHIPPING ON MULTIPLE ITEMS ! PLEASE NOTE: In order to have us combine shipping, you MUST wait for us to send you a revised invoice for your order after you have clicked on BUY IT NOW for ALL of the items you want. Please contact us if you have any questions about this.

ATTENTION INTERNATIONAL (NON-U.S.) CUSTOMERS: Recent changes in the US postal system rates for packages going out of the US have raised the cost for sending small parcels internationally; you'll get a better value for your shipping cost if you order a minimum of 2-3 items at a time. Remember to let us send you a revised invoice for combined shipping for multiple items before sending your payment.

SHIPPING TIME: We will generally ship your order the same day that we receive your payment for the order. If there are any issues or potential delays with your order, we will contact you ASAP to let you know.

Don't forget to check out all of our other CRUCIAL BLAST-approved avant-metal/black industrial/trasngressive art items and releases that are available in our Ebay store and on auction. We also have many out-of-print and rare items available in our catalog as well... CRUCIAL BLAST: An online shop specializing in experimental metal, black industrial, black psychedelia, noise rock, dark ambience, and other forms of cutting edge and left-field heaviness. We also carry a carefully curated selection of books and other printed materials from the realms of black surrealism and transgressive thought.


Hit us up with an email
if you have any questions.