Review Summary: They rinsed the dog out of this one.
HEALTH are one of the most exciting bands active today. In an oversaturated market filled with a dime-a-dozen bands and artists all replicating the “hip” thing in their respective fields, HEALTH are over here doing their own thing and killing it, one project at a time. They’ve been so effective at it in fact, they’ve given me a complex of sorts. Indeed, HEALTH are at a juncture in their career where I don’t have a clue where they’re going to go stylistically. Sure,
Disco4 – like
Death Magic and
Disco3 did for
Vol.4 :: Slaves of Fear – laid out some clues for
Rat Wars’ direction, but it was hard to gauge just how it would turn out. As such, because I’m so invested in what these guys are doing, for the last six years now I’ve gone through the same process when putting on a new HEALTH record for the first time. Two things happen in the micro seconds leading up to my finger hitting the play button – one: I get mildly perturbed at the possibility this could be the first stain on their immaculate body of work preserved thus far; and two: as a reaction to the first thing, my brain races over and over on how they could possibly continue on this upward trajectory. Genuinely,
Vol.4 :: Slaves of Fear felt like a creative climax for the band, and they were now set to ride out their days like AC/DC, releasing solid fan-pleasers. Yet, in typical HEALTH fashion, with all that crap whirling round in my brain as I slam my finger down on the play button for the first time, my worries and uncertainties are immediately obliterated.
Let’s skip the formalities here, I’m not going to keep you waiting –
Rat Wars is yet another unparalleled triumph for the band.
Rat Wars isn’t afforded the same luxury of building up to a drastically cathartic shift in style like
Vol.4 :: Slaves of Fear, but it essentially takes the heaviest ideas from their fourth album and the two
Disco4 records, pumps it full of as much dog as humanly possible, straps a nuclear missile on its back, riles it up like Charlies Bronson on one of his colourful, naked rages and unleashes it unto the world. All jokes aside, this is easily the heaviest album of their career; a merciless, despondent industrialised warzone that makes
Vol.4 :: Slaves of Fear look like an episode of the Teletubbies by comparison. It’s almost meme worthy how loud and dejected this record is, and the ideas pertaining to it make the whole album a blistering thrill ride.
Rat Wars utilises thrashy guitars that feel like a homage to Rammstein or Metallica at times, there are moments that echo the industrial misanthropy of early Godflesh records, and there are hip-hop beat breakdowns that could literally chatter your teeth with the right sound system.
Yes, the bulk of
Rat Wars’ sound is primarily made up of various industrial hues and other forms of heavy metal. The chugging colossi “Children of Sorrow” with its throaty, thrashy guitar work; the aggrotech bopper “Hateful”; the industrial-metal charger “DSM-V” with its stomping Rammstein-styled rhythmic chugging; and the undeniably awesome “Sicko”, which samples Godflesh’s “Like Rats” in the backdrop of its wrecking ball grooves and trouncing electronics. However, for all the obvious heavy elements applied to the album’s ungodly noise,
Rat Wars’ greatest strengths come from the melody and its melancholic presentation. The atmosphere in particular is extremely distinct, oppressive and unrelentingly claustrophobic, feeling like you’re being smothered by a production taking great pleasure in pounding you to dust with its planet-colliding breakdowns and capacious rhythms.
Vol.4 had this Skynet dystopia thing going on, but here the band embrace the bosom of humanity’s demise with a wide-eyed grin, which works synergistically with the album’s overall abrasive nihilism. Nevertheless, while this works well for the meat of the record, it actually enhances the pockets of hopefulness on here tenfold. “Unloved” sounds like post-punk-meets-aggrotech and is definitely one of the few moments of respite, with its infectious hooks and gothic-drenched choruses, while “Ashamed” feels like it could have made the cut on
Death Magic but was instead processed through the industrial meat grinder and installed onto here instead. The electronics are poignant yet kind of sweet, and the vocal melodies certainly hearken back to that era of the band’s sound. While “(Of Being Born)” (the conclusive reaction to “Ashamed”) and album closer “Don’t Try” completely strip the chaos down to bone and sinew; reposed laments that shift the focus onto Jake to fortify the album’s existential philosophies.
If
Rat Wars has one objective in mind, it’s to overwhelm the senses with as much abrasive noise as possible. Without question – if you have headphones on for this thing, it feels like you’re in a confined space with the band lobbing grenades into it. Nevertheless, don’t misconstrue this as some brick-wall-ass production that’s haphazardly put together. This is probably the most complex, multi-layered production in the band’s discography. The album is loud, yes, but there are so many little things going on in the background that you don’t hear on the first few listens. This could be screams in the background to support and counteract Jake’s gauzy vocals, or a harmony from the synths to juxtapose what the guitars are doing. It’s dense, but it’s not at the expense of hindering the music: it’s calculated so that everything has [just] enough breathing room. The genius behind this approach is, when the melodies do cut through the monstrous drum beats and wall-to-wall synths and guitar, it makes for a truly memorable experience. “Demigods” is the best track on here and takes a number of accolades along with it. This song is hands down their greatest opener to date – a track so good I’d wager it’s the best opener to an album in 2023. The track opens with a foreboding guitar melody that builds and gradually lets in these downcast synthetic swells, this is then quickly followed up with some thrashy guitar work and a billow of haunted electronics pervading the outer rim of the track. Fundamentally, “Demigods” is one big, grandiose build up that has one hell of a payoff. At nearly six-minutes, it exhibits everything this album is about before swiftly finishing off with a drop that will make music venues erupt when it happens.
Complete gushing aside, I should probably point out the elephant in the room. Even though it has taken the band close to a decade to get to this liminal point in their career – feeling far more organic than capricious – some may ask where this record leaves long-time fans? After all, this once noise-rock outfit has gradually shifted away from their roots and entered the industrial/metal thunder dome in recent years. As a long-time fan myself who adores
Get Color and to a slightly lesser extent
Health, I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the idiosyncratic electronic soundscapes and subtle intricacies from their earlier days. Nevertheless, HEALTH have always gone into this direction with earnest convictions, and
Rat Wars is indicative of that. The band’s fifth album is a sonically sound, exhilarating roller-coaster ride that shrewdly assesses the last four years of recorded material and makes a concerted effort to deliver the most punishingly heavy album of their career. It also lovingly echoes the cinematic-styled synth elements found on their Max Payne 3 OST (these moments are brief, but they’re used to let the dust settle down on the chaos and to gel the tracklisting together). With all of that in mind,
Rat Wars ends up being their most comprehensive album to date. It’s another ambitious voyage into heavier pastures, building on everything they’ve been doing since
Disco3. The result is a record that’s more cinematic, darker, louder, heavier and harder than anything we’ve heard from them before today, and frankly, I’m here for it.
