H3llb3nt was formed in San Francisco by Bryan Barton, Charles Levi, Jared Louche, Jordan Nogood and Eric Powell. The idea came about when Powell and Barton were touring with their bands, 16Volt and haloblack respectively, and decided on collaborating on an electronic music project that and had less emphasis on guitars. Their debut studio album, titled 0.01, was released by Fifth Colvmn Records on February 20, 1996. Sonic Boom called 0.01 an “exquisitely tuned finite element state machine which hums along with a groove all of its own” and only criticized the album for being too short.