I've been wanting to write about Hella for a while now. I discovered the band a couple of months back and I have run through whatever albums of theirs I could get hold of. They are primarily a two member jam-band with Spencer Seim on the guitars and Zach Hill on the drums, who are both infact multi-instrumentalists. I do not know how to start describing the band. Words like "avant-garde" and "genius" are not sufficient to describe these gentlemen, who have been wreaking havoc in my life! They started experimenting with vocals and samples in their later albums and got even weirder! I wish I had the technical knowledge to exactly describe the guitarist's techniques and sounds. The drummer is a god of kick drum and cymbals. Their most recent double release "Churches Gone Wild/Chirping Wild" has a lot of Nintendo influenced music, so all you gamers will love it. The music is still very melodic in its own way. Melody gets redefined when one talks about bands like these. Ghost Dance, Post-Ivy League Depression, Biblical Violence and Famnail are some of the most disturbing songs I've ever heard. Their creativity scares me!
Inspired by Hella, I started searching for other similar bands and found quite a few actually. These guys are themselves playing in numerous side-projects, with other equally mad musicians. I'm dropping a few names to give you an idea.. Mike Patton, Les Claypool, Chino Moreno etc. The Advantage is a band in which Spencer Seim plays the drums. All their songs are covers of classic 8-bit Nintendo music! (remember Contra, Batman etc..?) They play these songs to deadly perfection. I've listened to their 2006 release Elf-Titled and am trying to get hold of their earlier album in which they covered Mario tunes! An other bands you have to check out is The Ladies, an other two member project in which Zach Hill plays drums.
Inspired by Hella, I started searching for other similar bands and found quite a few actually. These guys are themselves playing in numerous side-projects, with other equally mad musicians. I'm dropping a few names to give you an idea.. Mike Patton, Les Claypool, Chino Moreno etc. The Advantage is a band in which Spencer Seim plays the drums. All their songs are covers of classic 8-bit Nintendo music! (remember Contra, Batman etc..?) They play these songs to deadly perfection. I've listened to their 2006 release Elf-Titled and am trying to get hold of their earlier album in which they covered Mario tunes! An other bands you have to check out is The Ladies, an other two member project in which Zach Hill plays drums.
