Helmet

Helmet have never been your typical heavy-metal band. While clearly a fan of Black Sabbath’s down-tuned power chords, founder Page Hamilton spent his pre-Helmet years studying jazz and minimalist music as well as playing with New York’s Band of Susans, whose ear-splitting dissonance was popular among fans of noise rock and post-punk. That unique confluence of ideas would make Helmet’s debut, the Amphetamine Reptile-released Strap It On, an underground success in 1990. Mainstream recognition came two years later with the arrival of the brilliantly crushing Meantime album. Helmet simply didn’t sound like anybody else, and their complex time signatures, staccato riffs, and brutally mechanized repetition exerted a massive impact on nu-metal, metalcore, groove metal, and post-hardcore. Though the group slid into hiatus in the late ’90s, Hamilton (minus original drummer John Stanier, who went on to play in Battles) revived Helmet in 2004. More of a solo vehicle for Hamilton this time around, Helmet would drop several more records, further solidifying their legacy as one of heavy metal’s most singular institutions.