HEALTH uses all caps for its name and everything else. Given the extreme industrial nature of the music, I guess that's appropriate. This sounds like a rough mashup of Broken and Streetcleaner, though the sound is more precise and has a wider range. For that matter, this album has a much greater variance than previous outings (which, in fact, include a collab with NIN).

HEALTH RAT WARS (Loma Vista Recordings)

Not so much a maturation as what sounds like a band coming into its own. With a sound grounded in early 90s industrial noise (down to choice of drum machine, I believe), HEALTH is more pastiche than progenitor. But damn, the boys make these old parts sing.

Oh, and Godflesh guests on a track here. Which, of course, makes perfect sense. It's not like the touchstones mentioned above wouldn't be obvious to anyone. Blistering, noisy and propulsive, these songs show no quarter.

Back in the day (2012) HEALTH did the soundtrack for Max Payne 3. I didn't see that movie (like most people), but I'm sure that it didn't deserve the music. The sonic palette is perfect. This is the a very heavy excursion into the cyberpunk existence, but it thrills all the same.

Jon Worley