LA’s darkest electro-noise-pop project HEALTH is about to release their third album, Death Magic, on August 7th, but you can hear the entire
LA’s darkest electro-noise-pop project HEALTH is about to release their third album, Death Magic, on August 7th, but you can hear the entire record now on NPR’s First Listen through the link below.
Do it now:
HEALTH, around since 2006, has made waves in the darker corners of the electro dance/noise movement. They’ve worked with the likes of Tim and Eric’s Eric Wareheim for one of the best music videos every made (seen below,) and they’ve got a number of remix albums with Crystal Castles, Acid Girls, and Toxic Avenger to help flaunt their hip-as-fuck background.
What makes HEALTH really stand out is the brutal nature of their beats mixed with the softness and beautify of their vocals and lyrics. What sounds like a hurricane blowing through your skull, killing millions, is actually a track about the dangers of falling in love.
The highly anticipated Death Magic album has been released bit-by-bit in videos and singles with the likes of Pitchfork and NOISEY swallowing after administering the highest quality HJ. But don’t be fooled, HEALTH has earned the praise they’re getting.
At the end of their first music video for this album, “New Coke,” the band included a phone number and the simple message “If you need to talk.” Sure enough, the number was a google-phone number that directly called band members and opened them up to fans. I called the number to test it out one night and after they promptly picked up I told them I loved them and I was way to intoxicated to be talking to one of my favorite bands.
Always the professional, I’m doing everything in my power to get the world on the HEALTH band wagon. So join up, dance your asses off and enjoy the beats between the battles.
Other singles from the new album include “Men Today,” and “Stonefist,” both brutal, violent tracks.
As I give the entire album a first listen (get it) this AM, I am continually shocked at how consistent the band is this time around. Earlier records may have fallen short in pacing and timing, with too much noise or not enough beat breaking songs into listenable or unlistenable groups. But on Death Magic, the band finds their stride and stops short of too much or too little of anything. Rather, the record digs out cliffs to hang yourself from before singer Jake Duzsik lures you back to his own evil plot.
The review included in NPR’s First Listen is just as full of praise as this write up, with Andy Battaglia calling the new record “grand, and each resulting sound is scaled to match.”
“Somehow, through all the vein-straining intensity, the tone is less antagonistic than alluring, open to attention in different registers,” wrote Battaglia. “The dreamy singing of Jake Duzsik floats hopeful and wide-eyed even in the midst of all the haunted melancholy, similar to the way vocals work within the Icelandic band Sigur Ros.”
Death Magic drops August 7th, you can order it early here (and I’m doing that right now)
