Album Review: Debt by Helpless

Helpless release their debut album Debt on 8^th September via Holy Roar. Fuck me, what a wonderfully brutal album it is. Having previously delivered on their promising self-titled EP, the band have ramped things up a notch here.

Savagely blunt and sonically intense, it’s 10 tracks that take the band’s hardcore template with added flavours of grindcore, noise rock and even figurative elements of death and black metal. Even the cover art sends a shiver of fear down the spine, is it a faceless person? Some kind of animal? Whatever the hell it is, its intensity and easiness matches the album perfectly.

If you want something neatly packaged and easy on the ear walk away now and never go near Debt. It’s just viscerally and brutally uncompromising in every second of its short life. Naturally only one of the 10 tracks have any real longevity, closing track ‘Denied Space’ decides to space out the crushing riffs with some brutally heavy bass tones, otherwise it’d just be impossible to maintain the grindcore intensity.

Don’t even take our word for it, just stick it on and let the riffs pummel you to within an inch of your life. If you need a little more guidance think menace of early Gaza or Converge and the turn-on-a-dime musical dexterity of Breather Resist often combined with grindcore. Our review couldn’t possibly touch how full on and forceful this is. Get the exclusive stream here.

AD Rating 7.5/10