HEALTH have introduced their new album ‘Battle DLC’ with the pummelling single ‘Extraordinary Loss’. Test it out under together with our interview with frontman Jake Duzsik.
Teased by the pummelling ‘Extraordinary Loss’ – the band’s heaviest album opener thus far that sees them withstand how “the lifeless are blessed with no goals” – ‘Battle DLC’ takes the themes of acclaimed “cum metallic” predecessor ‘Rat Wars’ to ever darker however perversely extra accessible locations.
Arriving in December through Loma Vista Recordings, ‘Battle DLC’ is one other exploration of despair, nervousness, compulsion, albeit within the digital dystopia hellscape of doomscrolling. These, as Duzsik defined, are timeless emotions of hopelessness, however now “slamming into this contemporary second of so many issues truly making us loopy. ”
“I’m treading the identical nightmarish water on a regular basis, which is attempting to confront meaninglessness and unreckonable, unavoidable dying on this bewildering cosmic panorama and altering actuality,” Duzsik advised NME.
An fascinating flip additionally got here when the band discovered a solution to take their guitar sound to epic new heights, with somewhat assist from a Knocked Unfastened collaborator.
“The mixer on all of the extra guitar-forward tracks was somebody we hadn’t labored with earlier than,” mentioned the frontman. “It’s a producer/mixer known as Drew Fulk – who additionally goes underneath the moniker WZRD BLD – who had simply carried out that final Knocked Unfastened file [‘You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To’]. Once we heard that file, we had been similar to, ‘Holy shit, now we have to determine who made this’.
“We wished the extra guitar-focused music to have that. How do you make basic industrial music however then make it really feel prefer it’s made in a very trendy sense that utilises the complete frequency spectrum of sub-bass and transience within the drums? That grew to become the mandate for that, directionwise.”
Take a look at our full interview under, the place the frontman opens up in regards to the impression of life on-line, being impressed by the likes of Sleep Token and Slipknot, how this might be their Radiohead ‘Child A’/’Amnesiac’ second, and making their most “enjoyable” and banger-filled album thus far.
NME: Hi there Jake. How would you describe your relationship with the web hellscape?
Jake Duzsik: “It’s fairly insidious whenever you catch your self laying in mattress doom-scrolling, and simply how damaging it’s. I’ve been attempting to get my thoughts round what it was like to simply not examine your fucking cellphone whenever you get up within the morning.
“At a sure stage, you’ll be able to change into conscious of not desirous to observe the basic cliche of simply bemoaning the way it was higher whenever you had been younger – however the fascinating technological singularity makes it straightforward to look at all of the algorithmic poisoning. You don’t have to simply decry youthful individuals for being on-line and the way they will’t be within the second, as a result of you’ll be able to watch it corrupt your dad and mom and your fucking grandparents too.
“My very own dad bought a smartphone and he was simply as tractor-beamed as a 14-year-old child. It destroys all walks of consideration, psychological wellbeing and high quality of life, and but I’m completely dependant on it what my job is. I hope everybody retains utilizing it somewhat bit only for us, however not in a world-ending damaging sort of means.”
Is that troublesome to stability with HEALTH being such an ‘on-line’ band?
“Extraordinarily. You may’t separate the artwork of our band from the web and social media at any stage of our profession. We don’t get to do what we’re doing with out it. It’s a double-edged sword.”
Navigating this inescapable digital doom twister is on the coronary heart of ‘CONFLICT DLC’, proper?
“Positively. When individuals ask me, I don’t are inclined to immediately explicate lyrics, to not be trite, however as soon as it’s within the courtroom of public opinion and somebody’s listening, their tackle it’s extra actual to their life than what I might say it’s. However as a caveat, my lyrics are fairly fucking direct – I don’t assume that they’re shrouded in simile and metaphor or coupled with absurdist nonsensical strains then fall by an earnest line. The sentiment is pretty clear.
“It’s simply such a complicated time as a result of these themes and that looking out are are outdated as any self-aware human story, however now now we have these components which can be truly reprogramming our neurobiology.
“It’s particularly designed to make moderation terribly troublesome. It’s a tough factor to navigate that and eternity, dying, genocide, and the fucking destruction of the planet. Then you definately surprise, ‘Is that why?’ Patton Oswalt mentioned one thing alongside the strains of, ‘They distract us with these small issues to allow them to fuck us on eternity’. That’s what it appears like – we’re all so absorbed and might’t cease. However I don’t even know who ‘they’ are, as a result of the identical factor is occurring to them. Even the tech overlords who poisoned every little thing with the algorithmic wasteland are falling prey to their very own bullshit.”
How do you’re feeling that your method to navigating all this modified since ‘Rat Wars’?
“That’s an amazing query. Clearly numerous this shit is in all of our subconsciouses, so attempting to go by it and take care of it signifies that I’ll generally simply sing one thing once I’m demoing and the very first thing that I might sing would keep: it’s like sad-ass slam poetry. There’s one thing emergent about it. That’s been helpful for me. It’s therapeutic and does dispel one thing I would like to precise, and that tends to serve to speak that extra to the listener as a result of we’re all going by the identical second. Tapping into that agitation and unease.”
You’d mentioned that you just’d been impressed by enjoying dwell with the likes of Sleep Token and Slipknot to make a extra direct sounding file. Does that additionally come from a spot of wanting to chop by all this noise?
“We’ve got by no means been a ‘metallic pageant’ band, in order that may be very latest for us. It was extraordinarily illuminating as a result of we did numerous them within the US, Europe, UK and Australia. We’ve by no means actually been a style band. We’re all the time ‘bridesmaids, by no means the bride’. We don’t fairly slot in and aren’t focal within the programming or the aesthetic, even in what some noticed as our ‘Pitchfork indie period’. I feel that has labored out nicely for us to not exit of trend. There’s nothing to exit of trend.
“There are some cycles within the artistic course of which can be detrimental. You spend all this time writing a file, and when that file is completed you could possibly change into burned out and actually need a recharge and will lose perspective and focus. However you perceive what you probably did greatest proper whenever you cease. Then you definately go on these imposed album tour cycles and also you change into a pariah from creativity. It’s a rat race of touring that’s exhausting and stimulating. The thought of Led Zeppelin writing ‘Zeppelin II’ simply by riffing throughout soundcheck simply isn’t how data get made any extra.
“Occurring tour is the dialog; the dialog you’re having is along with your viewers – particularly headline reveals. With the metallic festivals we had been conscious of this vitality and these tempos reacting with the gang. With our personal reveals, you’re having this emotional dialogue from the stage and there’s this alternate of vitality and catharsis. Then you definately cease touring and also you neglect what that was. We wished to remain actually shut and return to write down music instantly. It was applicable to remain in the identical aesthetic universe as ‘Rat Wars’ and the sonic palette.”
And the place did you’re taking that aesthetic?
“We ended up updating it. My plan initially was to launch a file a 12 months later and have it nearly as a double album, however double albums are nearly solely solely thought-about a good suggestion by the individuals who launch them. I’m hard-pressed to consider double albums – even by artists I like – the place I feel, ‘What a good suggestion!’ There are particular bands like The Conflict, and I’m an enormous Conflict fan, the place a part of the magic is that they launch every little thing: a few of it’s whole shit and a few of it’s good. They don’t care. We didn’t wish to do this.
“We break up it up in a means that you just don’t have to go away the universe of that file or reinvent something, however you continue to keep near how the followers felt in regards to the music you simply realised and what they advised you whenever you performed it.
“One factor about ‘Rat Wars’ is that it’s fairly free by way of construction. We didn’t actually attempt to write singles and it feels nearly like an idea file and not using a foolish through-line with a personality. I felt like if we tried to simply to do half two of that, that it will a idiot’s errand with diminishing returns as a result of the comparability can be too straightforward to make. Our resolution was, ‘If ‘Rat Wars’ appears like an idea file on this expansive panorama, then ‘Battle DLC’ goes to differentiate itself by being extra uptempo, extra bangers, extra enjoyable and shit I do know will likely be enjoyable to play dwell’.
“There needed to be some progress that felt artistically related, with out having emigrate out of that artistic panorama that we created.”
It’s mantra, too: the world is on fireplace so let’s occasion
“Precisely. It’s somewhat bit extra hedonistic. I’ve been attempting to distill that into some form of tagline. In sure methods it’s extra bleak, extra aggressive and extra determined, however it’s additionally extra enjoyable.”
“There are much more guitars and the BPMs are typically sooner. There’s nonetheless a good quantity of gradual to mid-tempo shit. One factor I wish to clarify is it’s not an album of B-sides. We wished to do one thing that sounded prefer it was in the identical universe, however not capitulate by lesser variations. It’s in the identical universe however it does sound distinctive.
“I’m going to make a comparability and I would like it famous that I’m not making a parallel to the cultural or sonic significance of Radiohead’s ‘Child A’ and ‘Amnesiac’, however that is how I thought of it on the time. That’s a fucking actually nice instance of two data which can be evocative of the identical artistic second for that band. They’re written in the identical means and similar place underneath one umbrella, however it’s not a double album and it’s not simply b-sides.”
HEALTH launch ‘Battle DLC’ on December 11, pre-order or pre-save it right here. Take a look at the tracklist under:
1 ‘ORDINARY LOSS’
2 ‘BURN THE CANDLES’
3 ‘VIBE COP’
4 ‘TRASH DECADE’
5 ‘TORTURE II’
6 ‘ANTIDOTE’
7 ‘DARKAGE’
8 ‘SHREDENVY’
9 ‘YOU DIED’
10 ‘THOUGHT LEADER’
11 ‘DON’T KILL YOURSELF’
12 ‘WASTED YEARS’