Following up a surprising teaser EP with a limited release earlier this year, Helms Alee drop their debut full-length on a mostly unsuspecting public; Night Terror is a great point to latch onto this three-piece and enjoy some noisy music that will leave heads spinning or throbbing or whatever head trip that it could impose. The ten tracks that Night Terror contains create tension and release in all the "right ways." And even though three of these songs are available on the aforementioned self-titled EP, the whole works very well and puts them into the hands of people who had difficulty tracking down the first record. Ben Verellen, Dana James, and Hozoji Margullis deliver one of the more intriguing debuts this year.
From the initial fuzzed out bass and incessant rhythm, Helms Alee seemingly ensures an off kilter sound from the three-piece. The guitars which one can hear in "Lefty Handy Man Handle" showcase surf rock influences but put to use in a much darker way. Verellen's straining but tuneful vocals create quite a neat juxtaposition with the droning guitar and bass during "A New Roll," save when he bellows from time to time (channeling his previous outfit Harkonen a great deal), which shows his growth as a song writer. The real shocker is when the female vocals (of either Dana James and Hozoji Margullis not sure which) make their presence known in a soft but extremely enticing manner to really add that extra something to the track. The three tracks from the first EP (rearing their head again on this album) are all excellent and fully worth inclusion on Night Terror particularly because the EP is so limited. The beginning of "Grandfather Claws" is pretty damn good, but I do have mixed feelings on the second half of the song. The guitar melody is great but the vocal effects are a bit off-putting. The vocals in "Shmnna" are some of Verellen's best (and harken back to his work with his woefully underrated band Roy) on the whole record, and the guitar melodies and rumbling bass match the impressiveness of those in every sense of the word; the song as a whole seems to embody everything excellent to find on Night Terror.
Night Terror delivers on all the promise of the self-titled EP and then some. All the fuzz which Harkonen explored mixed with quite a bit of quirky melody makes for a damn fine debut album. Even if people miss the EP, Night Terror surely includes enough of that material for people not to feel left out by the exclusivity of that release. More than worth the price of admission, if you still buy records, this is wholly worth your money - the vinyl version is on Robotic Empire while the CD version is available via Hydra Head.
