The Helm - Axis

Axis is not your average industrial noise record – it's an immersive, flesh-crawling sonic odyssey, twisted with emotion and texture. From the brain of London experimentalist Luke Younger, this LP is a gritty, tactile journey through sound. Tracks like the metronomic hammer of Moskito, the glitchy warfare of Repellent, and the cinematic, doom-laden title track Axis all pulse with a tense physicality that's impossible to ignore.

Originally conceived as a score for a dance piece, Axis transforms that original kinetic energy into a full-bodied listening experience. Younger’s return to raw, instinctive methods – noise boxes, contact mics, and bargain-bin FX – injects the album with an unpolished immediacy. You feel the music as much as hear it, in your chest, in your gut, like it’s coming up from the floorboards.

Guest appearances from the likes of Lucy Railton (cello) and Sightings’ Mark Morgan (guitar) push this industrial maze even deeper into the red. Alex Tucker’s eerie vocals and a haunting violin part from the late John Hannon add rich, unsettling textures that teeter between beauty and menace.

Closing epic Tower is Younger’s self-declared apex – a slow-burning inferno of drone, distortion, and catharsis. The result? A fiercely original slab of noise artistry that dares to be bodily, emotional, and defiantly chaotic. Axis isn’t just heard – it’s endured, embraced, and ultimately, survived.