Helen Ballentine一生都明白，她看起来既不强硬也不紧张。她有一头飘逸的金发，就像夏日夕阳下的麦田，体重比一般的高中二年级学生要轻（她2020年时在读高二），她知道第一印象往往是这样的："可爱、有礼貌、非常安静，甚至温顺，也许很聪明，"她总结说。当Ballentine回忆起五年级时被足球压扁，或者家人朋友最近被她的乐队名字Skullcrusher逗得发痒时，她笑了。他们想知道，一个如此瘦小和柔软的人怎么能挥舞如此沉重和有侵略性的东西？但是，即使听一次Skullcrusher的第二张EP《Storm in Summer》中的五首颠覆性的狂欢歌曲。你会立即理解这里的双重性--光明和黑暗，严酷和天堂，Skullcrusher和看似轻声细语的作曲家。Ballentine的曲子摆渡了一种微妙但坚定的强度，配得上他们的名字。 Helen Ballentine has spent a lifetime understanding that she looks neither tough nor intense. With wispy blond hair that suggests a wheat field during a radiant summer sunset, and weighing less than the average high-school sophomore, she knows how first impressions tend to go—“sweet, polite, very quiet and even meek, maybe smart,” she summarizes. Ballentine laughs when she recounts being flattened by a soccer ball in fifth grade or the family friends recently tickled by her band name, Skullcrusher. How could someone so slight and soft, they wondered, wield something so heavy and aggressive? But listen even once to the five subversively rapturous tracks of Skullcrusher’s second EP, Storm in Summer. You’ll instantly understand the dualities at play here—the light and the dark, the harsh and the heavenly, the Skullcrusher and the seemingly soft-spoken songwriter. Ballentine’s tunes ferry a subtle but unwavering intensity, deserving of the very name they take.