Health (band)
Health, usually typeset HEALTH, is an American noise rock band from Los Angeles, California. The band’s 2007 release with Crystal Castles charted at position nine in the UK indie singles chart.
History
The band have found fame by playing multiple concerts for free[2], leading to a variety of venues requesting to book them. The band’s favourite setting, LA’s The Smell, has been their chosen place to record their full length album, “during empty mornings”, although the band have already recorded a live album at the Smell, released on DNT Records.
In 2008, Boston newspaper The Phoenix named them the Best New Band from California.
HEALTH opened for Nine Inch Nails on part of the Lights in the Sky tour in the fall of 2008.
Style
HEALTH have been described as having “artfully crafted noise and raw synth, haunting monotone vocals, and drum skills that are borderline insane”[6]. Guardian Unlimited writer, Louis Pattison, chose the Crystal Castles version of “Crimewave” as the pick of the week, describing the song as “melancholy electro-pop built from pixelated synths and depressed vocals that hint at a past programme of busy and sustained serotonin depletion”. Jim Carroll of The Irish Times also chose the song as tune of the week.
The band describes the role of lyrics as being “purposely kept vague for the listener”:
“…[Lyrics] sort of begin to bring out this more individual quality to the whole thing like, ‘These are the lyrics, and this is the guy is singing them, so I can relate to that.’ Which is really not something we want. [9] We wanted the vocals to have an even, unaffected feel. A softness, like a Zombies melody, or even a Gregorian chant. We aren’t just interested in being a noisy screaming band.”
The band’s unusual sound can be partially accredited to the use of the Zoothorn, which is a permutation of microphone and guitar pedal and an occasional atonal sound without a symmetrical structure.
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