Help is a noise punk band from from Portland, OR who formed a few years back with Ryan Neighbors (ex-Portugal. The Man) on guitar/vocals, Morty on bass, and Bim Ditson (And And And) on drums, and they’re gearing up to release a new EP called Courage this Friday (10/11) via Three One G, coupled with the band’s 2019 self-titled EP (pre-order). It was produced by Sonny DiPerri (who’s also worked with Portutgal. The Man, Protomartyr, DIIV, and more), and it finds the band churning out the kind of noisy, abrasive, dissonant punk that fans of bands like Pissed Jeans, METZ, The Jesus Lizard, etc should not sleep on. For more background on the EP, the band provides this quote:
Help’s new EP Courage is centered around heartbreak and pain. Progress as a series of fresh new hells. Hoping that it is better to be in love than to be right, while enduring the apparent absence of both love and coherence in American culture. The short version of the story of this record is that both Ryan and Bim’s lives were exploding and falling apart. Okay okay, it’s a breakup album. Their vulnerability in these songs became necessary for their personal survival. As often happens, the music became a battery for pain in which they sunk energy into for others to later draw from, hopefully transmuting negative isolation into positive solidarity and togetherness. Though deeply personal, these songs are meant as an invitation for others to feel and hurt freely. After all, this may be one of the last freedoms we get to enjoy in this crumbled world. Courage. In the face of hopelessness, in the face of everyone pretending anything is fine, in the face of the end of things meant to last and last. Courage. If the goal is growth, success is an ending. War and love are forms of death. This record is an example of the destructive nature of growth. On the planet. On the human spirit. On our ability to hold on. For the band, Courage is a step towards a broader sound and an experiment in honesty over security.
The band recorded this six song EP at Hallowed Halls in Portland, OR, with producer/engineer Sonny DiPerri (Animal Collective, Protomartyr, My Bloody Valentine). The session was heavy, air thick with pain and dread for three straight days of tracking live together. If you want to gouge your eyes out because your music is so painful to you, you’re onto something. Because in the end, what doesn’t kill you makes your life worse.
They also add, “As much as we feel like Courage is a cohesive piece of music and stands alone, we wanted to give fans more bang for their buck and a more complete listening experience. We decided to press our self-titled EP, Help (released in 2019), on side B of the vinyl as well as make these songs bonus tracks on the digital release. The songs we wrote in 2019 still mean just as much to us as these new songs, our lives were just breaking in different ways, and they will be next time around too.”
Before the EP officially arrives, we’re premiering a full stream of it, and you can listen to that right here: