On their sixth album proper, HEALTH provide a distillation of their electro-industrial metal sound – and some of their best hooks to date.
Release date: December 11, 2025 | Loma Vista Recordings | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp
Parasocial relationships have become the norm in the age of social media. Every artist has a fanbase, and every fanbase contains at least one obsessive who takes their fandom too far – spending all their money on merch/tickets, following them around the country (or world) to see them, getting logos of their favorite video game companies tattooed across their chest. In the case of Los Angeles-based industrial trio HEALTH, that line is willfully, joyfully blurred: their Instagram page in particular is littered with all manner of anime worship, ironic promotion of their music as ‘cum metal,’ and general shitposting meant to appeal broadly to Generations Y and Z. Listening to their music, however, is a very different experience, as the music and lyricism are played completely straight and touch on mostly dark, depressing topics like ‘anger, fear, sadness and death,‘ according to the press release for their newest album, CONFLICT DLC.
This juxtaposition of silliness and seriousness gets right to the heart of what HEALTH have been working toward for the last 20 years. Initially a four-piece, the band’s first few albums – 2007’s self-titled and 2009’s GET COLOR – featured mostly abrasive noise rock influences and sounds. In between these, the band also collaborated with numerous artists on remixes of their material, showcasing an artistic restlessness and desire to push into new sonic territory. 2015’s DEATH MAGIC presented a more stripped-down, accessible sound, and 2019’s VOL. 4: SLAVES OF FEAR – their first as a three-piece – brought the industrial metal element of their sound to the forefront. The latter featured song titles like “NC-17” and lyrics like ‘fuck your Armageddon,’ which, coupled with their online presence, turns what could be read as simply edgy into a fascinating beast with two heads: one that despairs at the world around us, and another that laughs at said nihilism by jumping into another playthrough of Elden Ring with a couple cans of Monster to keep us conscious. Indeed, the aforementioned press release begs: ‘The future is shit and the phone you are reading this on is making it worse, but please don’t put it down.‘
After two albums worth of collaborations in 2020 and 2022 – DISCO4: Parts I and II – with the likes of Poppy, Full of Hell, and Nine Inch Nails among many others, HEALTH returned in 2023 with RAT WARS, a sterling collection of industrial hammering with only a couple of features and some of the band’s strongest songwriting to date. CONFLICT DLC has been referred to by frontman Jake Duzsik as the band wanting ‘to do something that sounded like it was in the same universe, but not capitulate through lesser versions,‘ clarifying that ‘it’s not an album of B-sides.‘ From the opening song “ORDINARY LOSS,” it’s clear that CONFLICT DLC shares a similar sonic pallet to RAT WARS, but the tempos, intensity, and desperation have been dialed up. ‘Everyone that you love/They’re here and then they’re gone/And I’m the same,’ Duzsik sings over the pulsating 12/8 beat, tying in the theme of death being an ‘ordinary loss’ that we’ve become so accustomed and desensitized to in the modern era. While Duzsik’s singing – often measured to the point of monotone – is often the biggest sticking point for criticism, he stretches out well on this song with higher vocal harmonies helping him stand out amidst the clamoring instrumental. It starts the album on a propulsive note, condensing everything enjoyable about HEALTH‘s sound into under four minutes.
“BURN THE CANDLES” picks things up even more, with the song’s Perturbator-esque synthwave momentum not letting up until a beat switch in the last 30 seconds that gives the song a chilly, eerie coda (no surprise that HEALTH and Perturbator have collaborated numerous times). Its opening vocals bring to mind New Order‘s dance-pop classic “Blue Monday” (a song HEALTH have covered, incidentally) in their delivery, setting the dejected-but-energetic tone the band can pull off in their sleep at this point. “VIBE COP” boasts some of the heaviest guitar and rhythms on the album, with machine gun drum samples and a standout chorus: ‘Follow your dreams/Just keep them to yourself.‘ This song also features not one, but two beat switches in its final moments: one that lulls the listener into a false sense of calm, before blasting back in with some truly grimy, sludgy riffs. It’s here that co-producer Drew Fulk, who performed similar duties on last year’s You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To by Knocked Loose, shines as an arbiter of metallic mass destruction, leaving nothing but scorched earth in his wake.
The deliberate pace of “TRASH DECADE” emphasizes its lyrics about the breakdown of a relationship and how hard it is to move on when, in keeping with the themes of the album, we know everything about each other thanks to the internet: ‘Too much pain/I know everything about you/I don’t want to live without you.‘ The song’s final stretch features tremolo picked guitar and double bass drumming that one could confuse for a metalcore band if not looking. “TORTURE II” and “ANTIDOTE” provide a much-needed cooldown moment, with the former being a gentle guitar instrumental and the latter a mid-paced ballad of sorts with a simple but effective melody. “SHRED ENVY” could be mistaken for a Rob Zombie song before Duzsik’s boyish vocals kick in, although even he sounds more venomous than usual on this track. The background screams provided by bassist John Famiglietti add some diversity and ferocity, while drummer BJ Miller keeps the song’s vigorous structure moving.
“YOU DIED” is a song title that any FromSoftware fan will see and snicker at, although the track itself is a mournful, bleak piece that sees HEALTH surpassing themselves. The lyrics – ‘We walked around the same streets/Yeah, we wanted the same things/Then we made plans/And never spoke again‘ – vibrate with a universally relatable simplicity and vulnerability. It’s very much bolstered by a sticky chorus that ranks among the band’s most memorable. “DON’T KILL YOURSELF” also has a title that one isn’t sure at the outset is supposed to be taken seriously or not but, in keeping with the band’s dichotomy of the sincere and the absurd, the idea is treated with respect:
‘This life, waiting for peace;
This lifе, a moment of grace;
This life, night after night, day after day;
I don’t wanna kill myself but I don’t wanna live this way.‘
The wash of guitar, bass, synth and drums is especially effective on this track, with even the vocals at the beginning sounding oddly affected and distorted in a way that adds to the song’s themes. Considering HEALTH‘s tagline printed across their website and numerous merch items reads ‘YOU WILL LOVE EACH OTHER,’ it’s not much of a reach to imagine “DON’T KILL YOURSELF” being emblazoned across said merchandise as well, rubbing elbows with ‘100% PURE CUM METAL’ and ‘SAD MUSIC FOR HORNY PEOPLE.’ A little sense of humor in the face of utter hopelessness goes a long way.
“WASTED YEARS” closes the album in unexpected fashion. Clocking in at over six minutes, it’s one of HEALTH‘s longest songs but wastes none of its runtime. The almost Depeche Mode-y bounce of the rhythm gives the despondent lyrics space to be heard: ‘We built it all together/We’re breaking down alone/We built a life togеther/How is it already gone?‘ The song climaxes on percussive guitar riffs that give way to an unusual ending: almost ambient, but not quite, with the distorted guitar lifted into the ether while the vague sounds of a crowd cheering can be heard. While this could be interpreted as a self-aggrandizing way to close one’s album, it takes on a different meaning when attached to the song’s lyricism: it almost reads as the band commenting on the futility of being an artist at all, having that relationship with their fans knowing that it’s all going to crumble down eventually. It’s a starkly effective way to end an album that has already been peddling modern misery for our enjoyment.
While HEALTH have attracted criticism in the past for wallowing in angst and agony, they have found new ways to express their apathy in useful, relatable ways on CONFLICT DLC. Sadness, anger, fear, death – they’re all ordinary, and we can’t look away from it anymore. There’s no romanticism, no denial, just acceptance, and in that, we find power, meaning, and purpose. If everything’s gone to shit, we may as well have an industrial rave about it, yeah?
