Portland’s Help is the frenzied sound of a broken and collapsing society. In a world beset with anti-human reactions to daily struggles, Help responds with ways to dismantle evil machines and systems.

It is this pro-human mindset that brought Help band-mates Ryan Neighbors (Guitar/vocals), Morty (bass), and Bim Ditson (drums) together. All three had spent the last decade or so in other, perhaps more restrained, bands: Ditson with grinding indie rockers And And And, Neighbors with alt-pop dynamos Portugal. The Man and with his electronic project Hustle and Drone. With Help, they are retrieving punk roots each member had put down in their teens. They are ripping the seams back open to see what’s really inside. Help is the band Portland needs right now. Fuck it, it’s the band the whole world could use a heavy dose of if we want to climb out of the dark ages of greed and into the next century of mutual aid and collaborative self-directed communities of creativity.

Help’s Courage EP was recorded at Hallowed Halls studio with producer Sonny DiPerri (Portugal. The Man, Animal Collective, Protomartyr, Emma Ruth Rundle). It will be available digitally as well as on limited edition color vinyl, where it will be coupled with the band’s first self-titled EP. It will be released on October 11 by Three One G. Order it here.

Of the EP’s title track, premiering here today, Neighbors says, “This song came from a hard time in our personal lives. We can’t think of a collection of words to better represent exactly how we were feeling. We came out on the other side of it and this song/EP is a huge part of surviving our dealings with cowards.”

According to the band, the entire EP 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 Neighbors’ and Ditson’s lives were exploding and falling apart. The vulnerability in these songs became necessary for their survival. Though deeply personal, these songs are meant as an invitation for others to feel and hurt freely.

Photo courtesy of Help.