Helsott
The Healer
(M-Theory Audio)
Out front, I’ll say, I didn’t like The Healer. Not even a little. Beating around the bush about any recording that earns one of five stars is a waste of ink, but I’m compelled to at least elaborate on it to some degree.
The California five-piece calls this recording “pagan metal” or, in a broader sense, folk metal, which is a way of saying that under their core black tones is an undercurrent of traditional music. Perhaps this is not my genre, I’ve bombed on others that came out under the same banner; that I am willing to venture, the necessarily pointed manner in which a band has to steer my attention is not where my tastes lie. I tend to thrive on subtlety. Perhaps you do not. Perhaps then, The Healer is an EP you would enjoy.
Helsott, which is Old Norse for “fatal illness” is a technically skilled band. On every one of the five tracks here, the guitar work is masterful, from mashing rhythms to an array of soaring, ascendant leads. The solos on the record are tremendous. The tracks where the band delves most heavily into folk elements, most dubiously on “Tavern’s Tale” I feel like the paint by numbers strings and chord progressions are leading me on a chase through Nottingham Forest, on the back of some barely broken steed. Musically, it’s a decent journey, but then the vocals come in…
On the strength of music, I would give The Healer three out of five stars. The EP is a mixed bag in song craft terms, but there is such a proficiency at play that my taste is easily forgotten. The vocals are bad, really bad in a distracting way. They never seem to know which direction to point. On some tracks, like “Unconscious Power” they alternate between a sort of half-sung growl and barrel-chested, strip club metal pontification. It goes all over the map; these five tracks feature, by my rough count, four different vocal styles, featuring three on some songs. It feels as though the band desperately wants to sound like a death metal band, but instead come off as so cloying as to deliver a clear enough message so that I understand every bloody word; which I really don’t, because the lyrical content is the kind of stuff I was tired of back in 1987.
I could go on. I won’t though, because again, too much said is, well, too much said. Advice? Put this record on the avoid stack. The avoid at all costs stack.
