HEALTH have been everywhere in recent years. And yet, listening to their first albums, full of noisy noise-rock chaos, you wouldn't necessarily have imagined the Californians as the future bosses of the industrial scene. Between their work on video games (Max Payne 3, Cyberpunk 2077) and their many collaborations (Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Poppy, Ho99o9, Perturbator, Chino Moreno...), they've made sure not only to spread their sound but also to extend their skills. Dancing with depression, mixing geeky references with the darkest pessimism, HEALTH not only have the right skills but also the right strategy: with RAT WARS, they're ready to take things to the next level, billing their new album as "The Downward Spiral for people with at least two monitors and a vitamin D deficiency".
Don't be fooled by HEALTH's irony and its way of handling communication, cosplays, memes and quips: RAT WARS is quite worthy of its description. If it's not as viscerally raging as Trent Reznor's illustrious album, it drowns in a constant sense of despondency. Jake Duzsik's melancholic, apathetic vocals convey this fatalistic resignation: the world no longer makes any sense, we're all going to die, so let's dance under the bombs. And the bombs are the irresistible beats and guitar riffs that shake you from DEMIGODS (on which Tyler Bates plays guitar) and never let go. HEALTH has never sounded so heavy, so metal, without losing its poetic, fragile, elegant touch, but it also has fun blurring the lines by speeding up the pace of its first track for an anxious, apocalyptic finale.
Fans of the early days will never find the experimental madness of the early days, but HEALTH may never have been as accessible or as catchy, but they're still manipulating textures and mastering sonic disturbances to bring density and depth to a succession of tracks that all hit the mark. FUTURE OF HELL (with Sara Taylor from Youth Code) and the already classic HATEFUL with SIERRA as a guest only increase in intensity until, in its final part, the transition (OF ALL ELSE), with its sinister guitar, blatantly reminds us of the aforementioned reference: The Downward Spiral, but transposed to the present day. This sudden bitterness, this minimalism of a few seconds with a funereal connotation, capsizes the album whose soul was already twisted on all sides by merciless machines.
HEALTH are well and truly at the top of their game: continuing in the same direction as Vol. 4: Slaves of Fear, but benefiting from the experience of their many collaborations, the trio deliver one critical hit after another and radical breaks in rhythm. The frenzy of CRACK METAL, admittedly very March of the Pigs, the guitar violence of CHILDREN OF SORROW (penned by Willie Adler of Lamb of God), the samples of Like Rats by Godflesh on SICKO, the EBM energy of DSM-V and its big, nasty riffs: HEALTH kicks ass. But it's also in the contrast that the interest of their work lies, in the pop or atmospheric touches that are just as present and just as relevant as ever, like the nostalgic, desperate and graceful ASHAMED or the conclusion to Don't Try, which sums up the spirit of the album: "don't try, I'm not here, I'm not living, the future's here and there's no way out".
Vertiginous nuances and contrasts, pop refrains, crushing riffs, ever-present noise experiments, chillingly pessimistic lyrics, delicacy, violence: HEALTH have added points of skill to each of these talent trees. RAT WARS is their most powerful album, catchy from start to finish, but also their most varied and melancholy. With its atypical and contemporary universe, HEALTH also shakes up the old codes to offer modern industrial music, at the crossroads of genres and deeply rooted in a contemporary feeling of futility, solitude and uselessness. It's perfect for dancing into oblivion, or just for getting depressed in your own corner and running away from any source of vitamin D.
