Helpless - Debt album review

Ear-damaging diatribes from the darkest corners of Devon

Cover art for Helpless - Debt album

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Some music makes you want to dance. Some music makes you want to cry. But some music makes you want to ram your skull through a thousand brick walls. In a good way. Plymouth’s powerviolence peddlers have lined up a debut album so putrid and barbaric that serious bodily harm to the brain and face seems like the only logical response. The relentless destruction is juxtaposed with a pervasive feeling of desolation and emptiness, like the concepts of aggression and sorrow are dancing in the flickering light of the world burning around them. From front to back Debt is drowning in darkness, surviving only on brutality, with just one track breaking the three-minute mark. In between the roaring vocals and battering drums, there are nuances finding new ways to cause pain. Just like the best torture masters, there’s no point in just having one way of removing teeth.

Luke Morton joined Metal Hammer as Online Editor in 2014, having previously worked as News Editor at popular (but now sadly defunct) alternative lifestyle magazine, Front. As well as helming the Metal Hammer website for the four years that followed, Luke also helped relaunch the Metal Hammer podcast in early 2018, producing, scripting and presenting the relaunched show during its early days. He also wrote regular features for the magazine, including a 2018 cover feature for his very favourite band in the world, Slipknot, discussing their turbulent 2008 album, All Hope Is Gone.