For their 2006 album, "Monochrome," California rockers Helmet [ tickets ] returned to the formula that made their early albums, such as "Meantime" and "Strap It On," successful.

The band--vocalist/guitarist Page Hamilton, guitarist Chris Traynor, drummer Mike Jost and bassist Jeremy Chatelin--co-produced "Monochrome" with Wharton Tiers, the man behind the two aforementioned albums, in the same studio where they recorded a song for the "Judgment Night" soundtrack.

"We're in a situation where we wanted to try something different," Hamilton said in an interview with LiveDaily. "We had been on Interscope [Records] since 1991. The label got so big it wasn't really the right place for us."
The group is now signed to WarCon Records, owned by Kevin Lyman, the Warped Tour founder.

"We don't expect to compete in the radio market and never have," Hamilton said. "We wanted to record it and mix it in [Tiers'] studio in one fell swoop. We did the last album in Los Angeles with a whole myriad of co-producers and different people. We were convinced that computers were a great way to work, but it's not really good for our band. I like to capture live rhythm tracks and do my vocals and guitars after that. I like the way tape sounds. It responds differently and hangs together differently."

"Monochrome" is Helmet's first album since 2004's "Size Matters," which followed the group's 1998-2004 hiatus. Last summer, for the first time, the band headlined the Warped Tour and realized they were just as relevant now as they were in the "Meantime" days.

"After having seven years off, it's really great to see little kids into us. It's bizarre. From 1998-2004 we didn't play, and little kids were being born. Now I have little 10-year-old kids saying, 'You rock.' I'm thinking, 'You weren't alive when we did our first three records.' But I'm always really stoked. I high five them and sign their skateboards," Hamilton said with a laugh.

Helmet is continuing its "Monochrome" tour with a series of California dates listed below.

The San Francisco grunge-metal band Totimoshi is slated to open the shows. That band--singer-guitarist Tony Aguilar, bassist Meg Castellanos and drummer Chris Irizarry--is re-releasing its 2006 album "Ladron," which was produced by Hamilton.