HEALTH - HEALTH

Yeah, I have been slacking with the blog lately, well…sort of. I took the past couple days/nights to emerge from behind this desk and step outside and participate in some social interaction with friends. I know, it’s amazing, but I felt it was time. Seriously though, stuff came up and that sort of takes priority over the blog, as much as I hate to admit it. But now I am back to doing nothing and that means turning full attention back on here.

There have been a whole slew of new releases that I’ve managed to get my hands on this week, one of them being the new self-titled album from LA’s HEALTH. I’ve been hearing more and more about this band over the past year or so after hearing a single or two and their ’06 Tour only EP. Not until maybe the past couple months did I fully begin to realize that they were starting to draw quite a bit of attention. I started getting slammed with e-mails about their split with Crystal Castles, which is quite good by the way, and then it pretty much just started to accumulate from that point on. But anyway, I imagine it all makes sense as these guys are coming from the same LA scene that so far includes bands like The Mae Shi, Captain Ahab, BARR, and Abe Vigoda.

Musically they have taken their unpredictable noise making and kicked it into high gear for their first full-length album. Featuring 11 tracks in just under 30 minutes, they run the gamut of free form noise, chilled beats, world music, dance-punk, and much more. A song like “Tabloid Noise” goes from buzzing electronics and pounding drums to a shimmering guitar line that hums in the background momentarily before the sonic assault is unleashed back onto the listener. HEALTH continues to display this sort of controlled freak out through the entire album and it pays off greatly. While I want to say it’s what I could have imagined it sounding like, there is no way I can honestly do that as that’s part of HEALTH’s game and they succeed in it quite easily all the while giving the listener something of substance to take in.

HEALTH – Crimewave [MP3]
HEALTH – Tabloid Scores [MP3]

Their debut just came out this week so, if you’re into the tunes above head on over to Amazon and pick it up. There is also a limited release of 200 for a cassette version of the album, which is being done by DNT Records for those interested. If so, obviously check out their site to order that.