Helmet pushed at the boundaries of their sound with
Betty, perhaps too much for their audience's liking -- the album stiffed in comparison to
Meantime. As a result, the band returned to straightforward
Helmet territory with
Aftertaste, restoring grinding guitars and pummeling rhythms to prominence. Theoretically, this approach should have made
Aftertaste a more immediate, visceral record, but it is simply numbing. Without the invention of
Betty or the gut-level force of
Meantime,
Helmet is simply a bland alternative metal band, lacking riffs, hooks, and purpose and relying only on volume. It's a shocking and disheartening turn of events for one of the more intriguing metal bands of the '90s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine