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HEALTH

Who? The four members of Los Angeles-based HEALTH came up with their primordial take on noise rock when they got their hands on a Zoothorn, a microphone-guitar pedal transmutation. The band, led by Jacob Duzsik (guitar, vocals) started rising in the L.A. circuit by offering to play shows for free, instigating booking bids throughout the city’s burgeoning noise rock scene. HEALTH recorded their self-titled debut LP this year at the Downtown, Los Angeles venue The Smell during morning hours (with help from Lovepump Records).

What’s the Deal? Healthy servings of tribal percussion, asymmetrical instrumentation, and animalistic curvatures make this band’s noisy aggression effective, without the need for intelligible lyrics. The near-innocuous opening track of HEALTH’s self-titled album, “Heaven,” segues into the 36-second neurotic dissonance of “Girl Attorney,” which picks up tempo on its transition into “Triceratops” — a thrashing scourge of screeches, feedback, and gratuitous clanging reminiscent of Liars laced with a relief of a Deerhunter meditation. Not even six minutes into the album, and you are drawn into a mind-numbing sonic overload only sauntered by HEALTH’s noisy predecessors.

&otFun Fact: At one of their shows this summer at Il Corral, the band members were so hot they performed in shorts and tank tops, leading some fans to believe they were staging a Lance Armstrong work-out act to go in hand with the band’s name. Turns out they were just too hot to wear full-length pants.

Now Hear This:HEALTH – “Crimewave” DOWNLOAD MP3

On the Web:HEALTH at MySpacehealthnoise.com

Talk: Is HEALTH’s clamoring noise rock good for you?