* HEALTH

History

The band have found fame by playing multiple concerts for free[2], leading to a variety of venues requesting to book them[2]. The band's favourite setting, LA's The Smell, has been their chosen place to record their full length album, "during empty mornings" [3], 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.[4]
HEALTH opened for Nine Inch Nails on part of the Lights in the Sky tour in the fall of 2008.[5]


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". [7] Jim Carroll of The Irish Times also chose the song as tune of the week.[8]
The band describes the role of lyrics as being "purposely kept vague for the listener"[9]:
"...[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."[9]
The band's unusual sound can be partially accredited to the use of the Zoothorn, which is a permutation of microphone and guitar pedal[3] and an occasional atonal sound without a symmetrical structure.[3]