In Fine HEALTH

It has become somewhat of a stock moan to lament over the lack of originality in modern music. Especially in recent years, what with the overwhelming influx of accessible and ultimately tired trends (garage-rock, nu-rave, emo, metal-core, the list goes on), not to mention the unprecedented wave of reunions and comebacks, many of them simply bloated money-makers.

It's with this in mind that it becomes particularly exciting to find a band like HEALTH. Arriving on the scene just a few years ago, the LA quartet boast a musical approach that reaches far beyond simply just the source material to create a startlingly unique body of work and one hell of a fucking racket.

The band’s self-titled 2007 debut established them as a force to be reckoned with, channeling the best of modern noise-making techniques, organic guitar textures and primitive beats, to create a lethal concoction of oddly controlled chaos and brilliantly brutal noise. At times this is reminiscent of the kind of guitar and drum onslaught made famous(ish) by the likes of Glenn Branca and later carried headlong into the realms of Grunge and Industrial. Yet, HEALTH have added a youthful exuberance and occasional dance-floor tendencies to the proceedings that has allowed them to poke their collective head out from the undergrowth.

Now on their second album, their fascination with aural hazardry was instilled in them by mutual appreciation for contemporaries such as Ex-models, as well as the revolving cast of the burgeoning LA noise scene. There, centred around venues such as The Smell - the city club that played host to the recording of the band’s aforementioned debut effort - HEALTH found solace in a community of like-minded artists, and what was to essentially be a catalyst for their own progression.

"As far as noise goes, the LA scene was just filled with ‘noise-rock’ stuff." Explains Jake Duzsik, the band's guitarist, and most prominent vocalist. "It was more free noise though, like, they wouldn’t really have a band or write songs as such." he adds "It was really intense, so we tried to appropriate that idea into our music. Some of it was just so raw, we thought 'whoa, we should try and make noise like that' but try put it in the middle of a song."

Another universal muse to get the cogs turning was Baltimore County’s finest, Animal Collective. "We all love Animal Collective, they were a big influence on us." Duzsik gushes, with a fact sure to please all at Skinny HQ. "The thing for us was that it sounded like it didn’t have a predecessor... and we really wanted to make new music."

Since plugging away in their formative years together, the band’s live performances quickly earned them a reputation for their intensity and relentless vigour, barely dropping a space in the whole set - which is no mean feat when the bulk of which involves constant split-second gear-swapping.

For whatever reason though, few people can usually stand, let alone enjoy skull-splitting frequencies and criminal volumes for the sake of artistic expression. But, with HEALTH on the other hand, some of the key elements or fundamental ideas behind experimental noise are set atop a solid rhythmic skeleton, tying up the loose ends so to speak and giving the music a dynamic lift, perhaps even some sense of ‘accessibility’.

"We actually try really hard to structure the songs." says Duzsik. "The live show seems crazy, and it is, but really we’re still playing songs." he explains, almost sounding surprised that anyone would think otherwise. "It might come across as just a ‘spectacle’ but we actually play everything pretty close to the way we play every show. I would say we do it pretty deliberately."

Even the band’s use of melody has expanded somewhat since the beginning. Their forthcoming sophomore effort, Get Color, and in particular, first single Die Slow, both demonstrate a bold step beyond the atonal chants of yore, and though it’s still encased in layers of dissonant carnage, this even plots them dangerously close to being catchy.

"We’re pretty ambitious as a band." says Duzsik. "We don’t want the albums to be just the same as each other, we want it to be that each one gets better. So, ideally, this one is a step forward, melodically and structurally." he adds. "The next one’s gonna be a huge step forward though, for sure." Duzsik "We haven’t really had a chance to write but we’ve definitely got lots of ideas."

So, as we wait with baited breath for HEALTH’s seemingly inevitable progression into something like noise-pop, noise-jazz or perhaps even noise-opera, the arrival of Get Color is surely enough brain-melting, foot-tapping experimentalism to keep us enthralled in the interim.

At the very least, or perhaps even more importantly, it should serve as a flicker of hope for anyone mourning the lack of risky, boundary-pushing independence in modern music, that isn’t afraid to bring the noise.