Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Helstar
Label: AFM Records
Release: 2014
Length: 51:33
Rating: 4/5
Helstar, the Texas legends of old-school American speed metal, just won’t quit. At the end of this April they put out their third proper studio album for AFM Records, and the eighth of their career! They’ve already taken it around Europe, and in mid-May that tour stopped in Ljubljana too. Let me mention right away that our own bassist Matej Sušnik worked on this album as a studio helper, jumping in to play bass in place of the band’s ailing original bassist Jerry Abarca. Matej, one of the most talented bassists of the young guard, has earned James Rivera and his crew’s full trust, which he built through Metalsteel’s collaboration with James Rivera in the Sabbath Judas Sabbah project. Matej also played a few live shows as Helstar’s stand-in bassist.
»This Wicked Nest« is nothing less than a textbook Helstar album. The guys hold on to the core of who they are and what they do, a thread running all the way back to the early eighties, when the band put out three cult albums that carved their name deep into the map of world metal for good. Times are different now. The band is far more experienced and plays way better technically than in the eighties. They just can’t shock with their image anymore the way they did when they burst onto the scene back then. A veteran crew like this, with years of friendship behind them and no hiding games, strikes compromises very quickly and reaches shared consensus when turning ideas into reality. Since we know the Helstar style is pretty much staked out and instantly recognizable, it’s only logical that the band tries to stray from it now and then, as far as the basic speed/thrash metal templates allow. Yep. Walking the thin line between speed metal and thrash metal, often blurred, happens on this album too, which isn’t exactly news when we’re talking about Helstar.
Guitarists Larry Barragan and Rob Trevino share the songwriting credit for the riffs on all the new tracks. On the instrumental Isla De Las Munecas, Jeff Loomis (Nevermore) even helped out with the arrangement ideas. Through most of the album (the exception being the song Cursed) Helstar are basically cranked up to the max. Razor-sharp, fast riffing with the line between speed and thrash often blurred remains the basic premise of the guitar duo. The lead guitar lines are once again wisely decorated with harmonies in thirds, picked at hellishly fast speed over those very same lines. But the sweetest part of this album is, again, the bravura acrobatics laid down in the inexhaustible solo escapades of both guitarists. Fuel on the fire for the album’s dynamic unfolding comes, of course, from the inventiveness and great imagination of the excellent Michael Lewis on drums, while Sušnik is technically flawless in handling his assigned duties. Of course, the most important element of Helstar’s music and their trademark is the phenomenal screamer James Rivera, who once again delivers his signature character. The charismatic vocalist is traditionally dark again, relentlessly dramatic. He sows feelings of doom, evil, apocalypse. The basic themes are once again flirting with the occult, there’s a whole pile of post-apocalyptic vistas in the verses, and death is once more the final judge. In short: Rivera’s favorite themes, which the man never strays from. On this album Rivera again tries absolutely everything his throat is capable of. He especially enchants the listener with his incredible vocal performance on a song like Defy The Storm, where he combines an extremely aggressive, guttural vocal that can barely hold the melody in the verses with an extremely high clean vocal in the chorus (his well-known recipe). On top of that, Defy the Storm is one of the most aggressive tracks on the whole album. Rivera remains a real little devil. An extreme embodiment of Dio and Halford in one package.
Up to the sixth song, Cursed, the album rolls along in the highest gear of unbridled aggression and menace. In fact, Helstar only ease off full throttle for a moment in this stretch. That’s in the song Souls Cry, where James develops more vocal melody in his performance. It’s actually the most melodic track on the album, thanks to the room Rivera carves out with his vocal lines. Otherwise, things on this album unfold with the typical sharpness of vehement swings of unbridled aggression and rough production, which is just what the band’s musical character demands. Then we get to the song Cursed, which departs slightly from the rest of the album. In the chorus it deliberately slows down into a crawl, commanded by a “hollow, muffled” riff turned down a half step. The doom of the curse’s spell is once again the core of its message! Yep. A faint, ominous whiff of old-school Black Sabbath is noticeable. Another especially interesting moment on the album is the closing Magormissabbib. You could call it a Nosferatu of the new era for Helstar. The most thrashed-out track on the album, with a main riff reminiscent of the “Bay Area” approach. The song itself is only a bit over five minutes long, and its last two minutes (and the album’s) wrap up theatrically with a woman’s prayer to Allah. It’s another one of the album’s more complex songs, welded together from several sudden shifts in motif and variations in mood, where Rivera’s apocalyptic vibe doesn’t let up for even a second..
»This Wicked Nest« is a very, very good new Helsatar album. The songs don’t have as much variety in mood as the material on its otherwise excellent predecessor »Glory Of Chaos« (2010), and there’s only one direction: the final apocalypse. An album full of gloom and the blackest black your imagination can conjure, it keeps the extreme aggression of its predecessor. »The Wicked Nest« has all the band’s traditional trademarks, which have once again stood the test of time, dressed in the latest fashion of excellent modern production carried over from »Glory Of Chaos«. Thanks to the longer compositions and multiple shifts in tempo and motif, it’s a tougher bone to gnaw on, but given Helstar’s past output that’s no longer anything new. A real album that makes no compromises with anybody. An album Helstar fans will embrace with open arms, and one that fans of old-school American speed/thrash metal will take deeply to heart too. And one more thing. We citizens of the Republic of Slovenia should be especially proud of this album. It doesn’t happen every day that a Slovenian musician (in this case Matej Sušnik) works with a band that, for its activity and legacy in the eighties, counts as one of the most important in the development of the American doctrine of metal. That way Slovenian metal (in all its subgenres) has won big recognition on the international scene too, even though we ourselves are too seldom aware of its value and high quality, and often even undervalue it.
Lineup
James Rivera – vocals
Larry Barragan – guitar
Rob Trevino – guitar
Mikey Lewis – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Matej Sušnik – bass guitar
Production
Helstar
Track list
1. Fall Of Dominion
2. Eternal Black
3. This Wicked Nest
4. Souls Cry
5. Isla De Las Munecas
6. Cursed
7. It Has Risen
8. Defy The Swarm
9. Magormissabib
