HEALTH
Lovepump United
(2009)
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A few weeks ago, my friend Jon got really sick and was lying in bed trying to get some rest. Being an obnoxious friend and inconsiderate roommate, I put on Get Color in the living room with the bass up high (it’s the only way to listen to HEALTH). “Uh, dude, that’s probably not the best music to play right now,” said my other roommate who had been nursing Jon’s semi-conscious state. I’m not sure what exactly counts as “sick” music. Classical, baroque, jazz, easy listening, silence? Whatever the case, I told him, with no pun intended, that HEALTH is what Jon needed to get his white blood cells pumped up (if white blood cells had ears and a predilection toward music), that the sound of ass-kicking and metal-ripping would knock the sick out of him. As a concluding note, I told my roommate that what Jon needed to do was to get color on his pale and sickly face. Needless to say, I became the pariah of the apartment for awhile, and I was not welcome to playing my loud records or making lame puns at least until Jon’s full recovery.

I’ll be honest and say that for the longest time I dismissed HEALTH as another L.A. scene band with a hard-on for noise and distortion. Sometimes you’ll get a lot of bands that perform at The Smell (seminal L.A. all-ages venue and HEALTH’s birthplace, if you will) who musically masturbate in front of the crowd and somehow manage to pull in an audience. With the exception of the split single they did with Crystal Castles, I didn’t think much of the four-piece until now. Get Color is still a hogwash of noise and dissonance. The guitar sounds are jarring, the drums sound like they can pierce metal-plate armor and the vocals sound ghoulishly incoherent. Yet I find the record more than listenable. I’m not sure what it is about Los Angeles that produces these kinds of bands (maybe all the repressed and mischanneled rage and energy), but HEALTH definitely deserves top bill in the roster of noise rock bands from California. The songs are all asymmetrical and grating, and it’s the kind of music likely to be unapproved by your girlfriend.

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http://www.healthnoise.com/

http://www.myspace.com/healthmusic