Those who might have feared that Page Hamilton has lost any of his songwriting chutzpah and the capacity for subverting his audience’s expectations will be set at ease during the opening seconds of Helmet’s new album, Left.
It opens with Holiday, a track that starts as though it has already begun, already at its half-way point, surfing on big chords and a hazy vocal melody. Like, what have we missed? Well, for starters, we have missed Helmet. This is their first studio album since 2016. But otherwise nothing. We've been ambushed by Hamilton’s choice to present the song as though the first bars were excised by an accidental mouse click. And it pays off.
