Recording on archaic equipment from the 1930s, Los Angeles quartet Health creates a massively imposing wall of fuzz and murk that ranges from frenzied noise rock freak-outs (“Girl Attorney”) to echoing non-syllabic chants of “Lost Time.”
Track distinctions sometimes seem arbitrary, as the double-kick-drum workout of “Courtship” fades into the monstrously rumbling collage of thundering drums and groaning ambient loops of “Zoothorns,” with each track featuring a similarly impenetrable wall of screaming and noise.
Between the spasms of clatter there are occasional moments of beauty, with the heavenly vocal harmonies of “Glitter Pills” and the unexpected keyboard drone and disco beats of “//M\\” proving that they aren’t singularly fixated on bludgeoning their listener into submission.
When everything comes together, as with the thudding beats, oscillating blasts of guitar distortion, and plaintively echoing vocals on “Perfect Skin,” they come close to making something uniquely their own — something that can’t be said for all of their similarly minded peers.
– Matt Fink
Health: www.healthnoise.com
Lovepump United: www.lpurerecords.com