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Music

Let Helta Skelta's Power Pop Anthem "55MM" Hit You Like a Shot From a Cannon

Taken from their forthcoming album 'Beyond the Black Stump', the song buzzes with a power pop and hardcore punk energy.

Helta Skelta are a punk band from Perth, Western Australia. A very good punk band we should add. One that strips the power pop of the Nerves, Buzzcocks, and more recent acts such as Dublin’s The #1s, and freshens it up like a late afternoon breeze from the Indian Ocean.

The five-piece’s second album Beyond the Black Stump, a reference to the geographical isolation of their home town, will be released on Canadian label Deranged in September. Like an over-poured pint, the record brims with quality content including "55mm" which we are premiering below.

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We had a chat to vocalist Jon Worpole (who also holds the mic in Prag) about the band and their influences.

Noisey: I take it the album is named after Nevil Shute’s 1956 novel.
Jon Worpole: I think we wanted the record to have an Australian feel to it, hence the artwork depicting the Nullarbor Plain. I haven’t heard of that novel though.

The term is used to describe an imaginary point beyond which the country is considered remote or uncivilised or an abstract marker of the limits of established settlement. Is this meant to be subtle dig at Perth?
Yes, definitely. We wanted a title that reflected Perth's relative isolation from the rest of the world.

You are now based in Melbourne. How does that affect the band?
It will definitely change the way we write and record, but not massively so. Instead of working out vocals in the rehearsal room they'll now have to be added to tracks later down the line. That's not really much of a hassle though, as it is similar to the recording process the band has used up until this point. In fact, I recently recorded a demo with a friend living in Baltimore by sending tracks back it forth in a similar way, and it worked out really well.

Your vocals have even more melody/singy parts than earlier stuff. You’ve really added a pop to the power pop. I can hear Love Triangle, the #1s and Coneheads.
On this record the band has embraced a bit more of a '77 sound, and the vocals have changed with it. Yea, I like those bands, but the main influence on the vocals comes from older UK/Irish stuff like The Buzzcocks, The Undertones, and Wire. There's still a big Australian influence, from 60s garage to 70s punk and new wave. Collectively we're way into that stuff. Overall, we've gone in a different direction with this record, and I think it's our best effort so far.

"55mm" is a song about a girl. What is the 55mm in reference to though?
55MM is actually a place, a cafe in Perth that I used to go to a bit. The place is actually called 50mL but that isn't as good a song title, is it?

‘Beyond the Black Stump’ is available September 18 on Deranged.