HEALTH – RAT WARS

Does the collapse of the world necessarily correlate with heavier, bleaker music? At least, that’s the logic behind the latest offering from California’s HEALTH. Even before RAT WARS, the band had never exactly been in the lace business, blurring the line between synthpop and industrial. Powerful candy anthems hammering out highlights with synthesizers and guitars, this is the instrumental content that has always supported Jake Duzsik’s ethereal vocals.

HEALTH still composes music made for dancing, albeit in a much more nihilistic tone (“Lives, all lies. Hateful of all but lust. Lives, all lies. Hateful of all but us”). We dance, but it’s one minute to midnight and this is our last chance. To underline this heaviness, the band sprinkles the album with more metallic elements like almost thrash metal riffs and screams hidden in the sound texture. It’s noisy and distorted, but always melodic, even soothing. It’s easy to move from the quietest to the most energetic moments, without losing that transcendental ambience that makes you feel like you’re on a dancefloor.

All in all, RAT WARS boasts an eclecticism that is the most stylistically varied the band has produced to date. The band’s ability to consistently produce earworms that don’t skimp on sonic experimentation is to be applauded.