The last time HEALTH headlined in Paris was in 2019 at Le Badaboum, just before their career really took off. A lot has happened in five years for the Californian band founded in 2005: over the years, this obscure noise/experimental project has become a titan of the industrial scene with its pop and shoegaze-influenced hits, a far cry from the noisy weirdness of the early days. Above all, HEALTH have been clever, multiplying their collaborations with remixes and featurings, as well as opening for better-known bands. The trio are everywhere: in video games (Max Payne 3, Cyberpunk 2077), alongside behemoths like Nine Inch Nails, Lamb of God and Ghostemane, but also in more confidential projects. They're back at the Machine du Moulin Rouge under the eye of organiser Veryshow: since the Badaboum, the size of the venue has increased tenfold, but that hasn't stopped the evening from selling out.
ZETRA
Zetra seems a logical choice to get you started. The British duo have only recently emerged from the shadows, their eponymous debut album dating from around a month ago (review). With a look that borrows as much from Kiss as from extreme metal, Zetra blurs the lines and plays with a very dark and evil image... to offer a gentle and melancholic music. Their gothic pop with shoegaze and synthpop nuances is reassuring on the surface, but all the better to poison the audience.
On stage, we appreciate the small platforms on which the two musicians stand, a simple accessory that immediately gives them a more solemn presence. We also appreciate how the tumult intrudes into Sacrifice, played as the opening track, to stir up the introspective and dreamlike layers and give them more body, more weight.
Although Zetra easily manage to occupy the space while remaining static, imposing their universe thanks to the characters the musicians embody, and certain tracks particularly stand out (Shatter the Mountain, in particular), we have to admit that, as on the album, the set perhaps lacks real breaks in tone and real variety. It will come: the musical concept is singular, the universe is strong and Zetra have managed to maintain a certain mystery that gives them a special aura.
GOST
GosT have been around for a while now, and Texan James Lollar's turbulence has been blaspheming merrily for over ten years now. After a minor goth / coldwave identity crisis with the album Valediction, GosT have since returned to their chaotic approach, mixing darksynth and black metal against a backdrop of apocalyptic ritual.
While we applaud the approach, this willingness to really go all out with the violence, to seek out both the savagery and the haunted atmospheres of black metal and incorporate them into electronic music, we can just as easily be annoyed by GosT for exactly the same reasons, and the chaos can sometimes seem muddled. It's also a pity that Lollar doesn't sing, as he's dabbled in the past few years, and we'll have to make do with a few vocals on tape.
We'll leave that debate there: the audience seemed won over and appreciated this drastic change of atmosphere, which allowed them to let off steam after Zetra. The diabolical frenzy of the tracks from the recent Prophecy (review) take hold of the audience and shake us in all directions at top speed. Still, we wonder if we can say we've ‘seen’ GosT live: tons of smoke and almost total darkness, barely disturbed by a few strobes and faint red lights, conceal an artist who was already hiding under a hood and a mask. Chaos and hellish atmosphere, right down to the visuals.
HEALTH
Like a ritual, HEALTH's arrival on stage is preceded by the song from Neon Genesis Evangelion, A Cruel Angel's Thesis, John Famiglietti (bass, electronic tricks) imposing his geeky facetiousness from the outset. With his headband thrown into the audience, the concert can begin in earnest. Identity, God Botherer, Crack Metal: the beginnings are intense.
On stage, HEALTH are the characters the band playfully portrays on social networks on a daily basis. On vocals, Jake Duzsik is the voice of affliction, his melancholy laments remaining in the same bittersweet tone throughout the set. Johnny, meanwhile, twirls his long hair to ventilate the stifling room. Behind the drums, Ben Miller bangs away, his facial expression a sort of demented grin in the effort to live up to his reputation as ‘the nice, slightly gruff guy in the band’.
HEALTH is as fun as it is depressing. As violent as it is gentle. The pop and shoegaze influences and the introspective laments are brought to life by some very nasty riffs and big, thumping beats (Hateful is a sure-fire hit, the finale of Demigods is irresistible and the martial rhythms of Feel Nothing shatter its calmer moments to shake us up even more.). Spleen, mess, fun: between the geeky references and the big sound, HEALTH is grim, defeatist, downbeat. It's an attitude that's as sincere as it is playful, both first and second-degree, but above all unifying and inclusive: if things aren't going well, you know you'll still be welcome here, whether you're wearing a colourful cosplay or feeling down! Major Crimes evokes sunny memories of the streets of Night City before Body/Prison transformed the Machine into a cyberpunk dancefloor or Deftones fans shivered with a cover of Be Quiet and Drive.
‘The next song will be our last,’ warns Duzsik. ‘I know ‘encore’ is a French word, but we're not going to do that annoying thing where we pretend to leave and then hang around backstage for a bit and then come back": playing the killjoy on duty, he's actually the funniest one. While DSM-V are banging on the walls of La Machine, we're perhaps only sorry that HEALTH didn't take advantage of being in Paris to try and get SIERRA to come and play Hateful or Holding on to Nothing: logistical realities are what they are, and that's the lot of artists whose studio work is full of various collaborations!
Next time, you'll need a bigger room (again). Extension after extension, HEALTH is gaining levels, and by filling their talent trees, the Californian trio are becoming the bosses of a genre they've dynamited, mixing the intimate with the big party, the extrovert with personal torments, the catchy with the sonically experimental, the rich and inventive with the primitive, pure and simple pleasure of sweating while the music goes boom-boom, and being happy to be a slightly weird person who's just hanging out in the dark with other slightly weird people.
