Helmet
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
ap group House of Pain on Just Another Victim, for the 1993 film Judgment Night, after Mengede left the band. The popular soundtrack (with its unorthodox mix of rappers and alternative bands like Ice-T and Slayer, Sir Mix-a-Lot and Mudhoney) created even more of a demand for Helmets next CD. Replacing Mengede with guitarist Rob Echeverria on 1994s Betty, Hamilton crafted an album even more versatile -- and at times even heavier -- than Meantime. The song Milquetoast appeared on the soundtrack to the hit film The Crow; Staniers unrelenting drumming drove tracks like I Know, and Hamiltons jazz background showed on the cover of Dizzy Gillespies Beautiful Love. Yet Betty proved to be a critical success but a commercial failure, its versatility relegating it to the cutout bins. Echeverria left Helmet in the mid-90s to join Biohazard, and the band bought time to refocus by releasing the Born Annoying collection of B-sides in 1995. Hamilton played all the guitar parts for 1997s Aftertaste -- but his vocals sounded like his heart just wasnt in a group in which he couldnt keep a rhythm guitarist, and the album proved a disappointment. After touring with Orange 9mms Chris Traynor on guitar and much deliberation, Helmet disbanded in 1999. But the Helmet influence was heard throughout rock, whether by Hamiltons involvement with industrial groups (Nine Inch Nails) or indirectly through metal acts (System of a Down), and even the atonal distortion of
ap-rock hybrids such as Korn and Limp Bizkit.
Helmet returned in 2004 when Hamilton recruited Traynor and a new rhythm section consisting of drummer John Tempesta (Rob Zombie, Testament) and bassist Frank Bello (Anthrax). Signed to Interscope, the group released Size Matters in October. They switched to Warcon/Fontana for 2006s Monochrome.
