The elephant shrew would not be eligible to enlist in the Rat Wars; it is not a rodent.

We can't ignore the elephant on our Spotify release radar any longer. We've got to talk about the new(ish - came out just over a month ago) Health album, Rat Wars. We've been putting it off due to a mixture of laziness/being busy with other things, and hints that it was a conscious, deliberate step towards NIN worship. Do we really need to re-do the post-Fragile, Mortal Kombat soundtrack cash-in sound for the modern day? I honestly don't know. In the name of science, let's find out.



First off, please allow n0teeth to peel back the curtain for a moment here and share some words we scribbled down but never published back when three tracks from the album were grouped together under the banner of Children of Sorrow and teased to the streaming platforms:

Health are now wading through what I'd call "experimental metal" territory. It's not that there's nothing industrial in there, it's more that making industrial music clearly isn't the thing that gets them out of bed in the mornings. This is a neutral observation, not a critique! There's a juicy EBM treat in the form of Hateful as well. Health's singer has a very distinctive voice that reminds me (not unpleasantly) of Brian Molko, but more cold and robotic.

I can't quite recall what I was under the influence of when I wrote the above, but it certainly doesn't hold up in the sober light of day. The pigeonholing as "experimental metal" still kind of rings true, at least based on those three tracks - as we shall see, the album is decidedly industrial in its own way. Hateful is undeniably EBM, yes, but it's more generic than juicy, with Parisian producer Sierra contributing some workable but hardly revolutionary 16-bar arpeggios. As for Molkovoice? It turns out to be quite grating after a couple of tracks - nevermind the dozen that make up the album - it and doesn't really suit the abrasive music. The singer sounds like he's drugged, numb to the noise, not fighting it but not working with it either. And how on earth did I miss the Justing Broadrick sample on Sicko ("featuring" Godflesh in the same way that clipping. "featured" Whitehouse on a track)? The choice is a clever nod to the album title, I'll give them that.

So that's a crunchy metal song, a bit of EBM and a cheeky Godflesh reference (shortly followed by a couple more teasers that must have passed me by). What of the album itself? Well, Demigods isn't a bad way to start an album at all. The ambience of the track conjures similar dystopian visions to Blush Response's Civilian Slaughter, and much like that track could probably have got away with being instrumental. Ok, you get the picture, we have established that I'm not a fan of Jake Duzsik's shoegazy robo-Molko voice, and am unlikely to be converted by the time Rat Wars' (commendably succinct) 40 minutes are up, but aside from that, we can't fault the way the track slowly builds up through washes of haunting orchestral synth, compressed guitar crunch and crisp, whip-crack drumming.

The Pitchfork-friendly quartet we once knew has fully embraced one of the last 90s genres to get a hipness reappraisal since the 90s: industrial rock. The production is all digital crunch and steel razor blade polish, and fans of Chemlab and Millennium-era Front Line Assembly will certainly find satisfaction in the processed-to-death riffs and beats. And if Demigods didn't do it for you, my fellow ageing rivetheads, the staccato bursts of (synth? guitar? angry wasp?) noise that lead into Future Of Hell should at least get you nodding your hollow, burned-out, dopamine-starved noggin. This isn't even the most NINesque track, but don't you worry, we'll get to that soon enough.

Hateful (feat. Sierra) is, as mentioned before, built around a blandly competent 4/4 EBM beat, which to be fair, on re-listening in the context of the album does show Health's apparent willingness to consciously turn away from hip noise rock and play in a language that a non-Gucci goth audience understands. The inclusion of harsh vocals towards the end had me second guessing if Sierra's contribution was purely musical - this is a rare occasion where I might actually prefer that vocal style over what's on offer on the rest of the track and album!

If you're looking for the most blatant bit of Treznor worship Health has ever recorded, you'll find it on track 5. Crack Metal is a speedy, noisy Wish/March of the Pigs hybrid that lets up occasionally to allow Duzsik to show his vulnerable side, as our Trent does even on NIN's most aggressive numbers, but unfortunately, with no aggressive side to contrast against, Duzsik's vocals in the quieter moments don't sound vulnerable so much as disaffected.

Unloved puts John Famiglietti's bass skills to good use, creating a glowering low-end menace over which lush synths cascade like light through a dungeon window. It's the first song that the vocals are a good match for, but frustratingly it's also one of the least original songs on Rat Wars, sounding like the work of a run of the mill 80s revivalist dark synth act. Ashamed makes a far better fist of it, slowing the tempo and bringing the crunching guitars back in to great, stomping effect in its final minute.

(Of Being Born), essentially Ashamed pt 2, is a largely acoustic guitar based track that proves Health aren't running out of musical ideas this far into the album, even if the songwriting hasn't exactly left a lasting dent in n0teeth's consciousness. With a jarring gearshift DSM-V takes us back to stompy club-friendly industrial rock territory, at once comfortingly familiar to those of us raised on trashy American first person shooter soundtracks and still slightly off-putting to those of us who, I dunno if I've mentioned this before, really can't get into Jake's vocals. A quick word about that, from the horse's mouth:

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.

Which is all well and good if you're not a noisy screaming band, but since day dot that is precisely what Health has mostly been. The contrast between soft vocals and harsh music becomes somewhat routine if the vocals barely contrast from one song to the next, and no amount of guest talent (Sara Taylor, Randy Blythe, the aforementioned Justin Broadrick sample) can compensate for it.

The Rat Wars come to a ceasefire after the Cocteaus-esque guitar strumming of Don't Try, a gentle, largely electronics-free number where for once the vocals feel right at home. n0teeth is left wondering: did I enjoy this album? And the answer it...not particularly, no, but we'd still like to give it another listen, if only to find out exactly why we didn't enjoy it (besides the vocals which, as I may have mentioned once or twice, weren't my cup of tea). Regardless of whether the intent was to become a 21st century Nine Inch Nails, that's at least one count on which Health have succeeded:

The goal was to create a record that, ultimately, you'll like - but probably not the first time you hear it. - Trent Reznor