Size Matters

Page Hamilton, the band's founder and chief songwriter, is the only original member appearing on the album. Therefore, some fans object to it being called "Helmet" and consider it to be a Page Hamilton solo project. According to Hamilton, founding members John Stanier (drums) and Henry Bogdan (bass) both declined the invitation to reunite.

Despite any objections, the album carries on in the Helmet tradition with Hamilton's trademark staccato sound. The album was recorded as a three-piece with John Tempesta on drums and Chris Traynor (guitarist on the Aftertaste tour) on bass. After recording was done, bassist Frank Bello was brought in so Traynor could return to guitar for live performances.

Size Matters had one single in "See You Dead". The track "Throwing Punches" was also included on the film soundtrack for Underworld, and "Crashing Foreign Cars" was featured in the video game Need for Speed: Underground 2.

Many of the album's songs and lyrics were inspired by Hamilton's one year relationship with actress Winona Ryder.[7]

The album was scheduled to be released on September 14, 2004, but was pushed back to October 5 after Hamilton broke his collarbone in a mountain biking accident, delaying the band's touring schedule that was supposed to begin three days after the planned release.[8]

The album debuted at #121 on the Billboard 200, selling 9,723 copies in its first week.[9]

Size Matters was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 52 based on eight reviews.[1] At Pitchfork writer David Raposa gave the album a mixed review. He criticized the band's change in sound writing, "Helmet attempt to diversify their portfolio, offering dynamics and approachable melodies and other types of listener-friendly capitulations one wouldn't associate with the folks that dropped Meantime and 'Unsung'."[4]

Johnny Loftus of AllMusic gave the album 3 stars and wrote in his review, "Size Matters emphasizes for the bloated alt-metal elite what it means to have craft and a little self-control. It isn't necessarily memorable, but as an exercise in measured, even artistic rage, it's classic Hamilton."[2] Josh Zanger of LAS Magazine explained, "Size Matters seems to come up a little short in certain areas though. The overall sound is a bit too polished and loses some of the raw power edge that previous albums rode to critical success. This slickness also makes the weaker songs forgettable and bland, and a few of the choruses are forced into overextensions. At times, elated melodies contradict the darker pounding force of previously established riffs and sound like unnatural ideas that never fully blossomed."[3]

In a review with Rolling Stone, Christian Hoarde gave the release 2 stars out of 5, explaining, "On their first disc in seven years, the manicured riffs remain, but the sludge is so overbearing that anyone born during the Eighties will wonder what once made them special."[5]

The Japanese release has two additional tracks: "Black Light" and "Just Like Me". These tracks, as well as "Smart" (a.k.a. "Opportunity"), "Enemies" and "Unwound", were originally recorded as Gandhi tracks, Page Hamilton's previous band.

Credits adapted from Tidal.[10]

• Size Matters at Metacritic