4 out of 5

Label: Sargent House

Produced by: Kurt Ballou

Epic.  …Mostly.

What you have here is what Helms Alee has been from the start, and have somehow managed to continually build upon: A powerhouse trio of drums, guitar and bass, wherein everyone plays every single note to its fullest, a trio of trading vocalists – all impressive – singing their lines with the utmost strength – and yet every element somehow not overpowering any other.  The songs are teetered just on that tipping point of noise, such that Hozoji Margullis can pummel her drums but knows to peel back to maintain the beat; Ben Verellen and Dana James can wail out on guitar and bass but know to bring it back to riffs.  And Stillicide just keeps going with that goodness, amped up to 11 + 11 by speaker-shatterer Kurt Ballou, who did what he did for Young Widows and allows us to hear the intensity through and through.

From the opening buildup of keys and guitar, you know the album will be epic, and followup track Untoxicated‘s dueling everything delivers on that and more.  Vocal leads flip-flop on the subsequent tracks, each vocalist a different flavor and achieving massive build and passion, and then we get to the title track, which exposes one of the occasional problems with Kurt’s production approach: nuance, or a lack thereof.  Stillicide has a fairly complex composition, some time signature shifts, and a quiet/loud struggle between singers, but it gets a little lost in “loud” and unfortunately ends up sounding slightly clumsy as a result.

More on the band side of this equation, Helms is equally adept at blowing out our eardrums during 5+ minute sludge blasts like closer Worth Your Wild, or two minute thrashes like album highlight Galloping Mind Fuk.  But when they get the approaches confused, going for 2 minute blasts, the songs feel shorted, ending in the middle of their rush.

But, y’know, you’re only really going to notice these things after regaining your hearing, and resetting your agape jaw, and listening to the album straight for hours on end, which is what I’ve been doing.  While it might not be as epic through and through as its intro portends – despite Ballou’s knob twisting and 100% epic-worthy riffs – Helms go the extra mile on every song.  The intensity bleeds through the disc even when you hold it in your hands.  So, like, give em a break if a couple of songs ain’t perfect.