RAT WARS

Veteran LA noise-rock trio HEALTH’s 2023 LP RAT WARS builds on their noise-centric industrial exercises, accentuating their hardcore tendencies with dance grooves, haunted synths and wall-of-sound guitar lines. Taking influences from Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and contemporaries like A Place to Bury Strangers, HEALTH build deeply twisted odes to sweaty nights on the club floor and long mornings trying to fend off the sun. Like its predecessor, 2019’s VOL. 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR, RAT WARS blends pain and catharsis, emptiness and ecstasy. On “UNLOVED”, the trio of Benjamin Miller, Jake Duzsik and John Famiglietti cook up a track built around military-grade snare drums, gnarling synths and hi-hats that slosh like boots in deep rain puddles. Duzsik takes the vocal lead, conjuring up a deeply dark tale as he croons in an almost-snarl, “And it was not my fault you were unloved when you were a child/I wasn't there.”