Helmet - Meantime LP vinyl record

Brand new, still sealed.

Listening back to Helmet’s first album, Strap It On, it’s easy to understand the excitement, though the commercial potential takes a bit more imagination. Released on the Amphetamine Reptile label, which heavily comprised noise rock bands, Strap It On pairs hooks with feedback and shrieks, as much a product of Hamilton’s background in avant-garde performance as it was a rowdy product of the evolution of New York hardcore. Meantime was different; still punishingly heavy and intense, it found the band embracing melody and catchier choruses. Bearing an inscrutable album cover that at first looks like an explosion, but reveals itself with closer inspection – as if it were a Magic Eye poster – to be a man in a helmet and jacket with some kind of long-handled tool, Meantime makes an immediate impression.

Track Listings