L.A.'s favorite noise-punk spaz rockers (sorry No Age) are back! Not that they ever went away - HEALTH's self-titled debut dropped in 2007 to rave reviews, with plenty of Liars and Boredoms references to boot. 2008 brought the HEALTH/DISCO remix album that melted slabs of HEALTH's caustic riffs with slinky disco beats - it really shouldn't have worked, but for some reason did.
What's better is that they've taken the lessons of DISCO to heart (at least a little bit) on their latest record, Get Color. Lead single "Die Slow" is about as close to pop as these guys will get, with disco hi-hats underpinning alternating bursts of synth squall that function as a hook, and an icy guitar that kicks in for the "chorus." Generally, Get Color works much better as a whole album than HEALTH, giving up the thirty to sixty second grindcore bursts that popped up on their debut. Tracks like "Death+" take their time building intricate loops of sound, while others like "In Heat" bring back the breakneck speeds of their debut. The coda of "We Are Water" and the ensuing drum-less (what?) chillout of "In Violet" give the end of the album the feeling of rolling slowly back to the loading platform after just being whipped around for 20 minutes on the world's nosiest rollercoaster.
It's great to see a promising debut bloom into a more fully-realized sophomore effort. HEALTH's play music like they're going to burn out any minute from now, but it looks like they just might be able to keep up this pace for a while.
HEALTH - Die Slow
HEALTH - We Are Water
Now listening to: Jose Gonzales - In Our Nature (2007)
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