CHUCK DULA: HELMS ALEE AT THE NEW FRONTIER LOUNGE TONIGHT >>>

Synesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. It’s within the sludgy math-rock, distorted guitars, and vicious wails of Helms Alee frontman Ben Verellen that you’ll see black. Helms Alee has taken the post-hardcore sound of Verellen’s former band, Harkonen, and tamed it just slightly to create one of Verellen’s best projects to date. Verellen sung-tunes like “Borrowed Wind” slowly infiltrate your head space and leave you hypnotized and a tad more dangerous.

Whether singing for Harkonen, playing drums in These Arms Are Snakes, playing in Roy, or watching his older brother destroy people in former hardcore pioneers Botch, Ben Verellen has always had an influence on the local hardcore community.

Do not miss this show.

[The New Frontier Lounge, with Prize Country, With a Bullet, Friday, May 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]