SLAVES is the heaviest HEALTH have been yet, like Death Magic but more so, with yet more cunning use of samples used as tactical strike devices, pulling more from Merzbow and John Wiese than Pictureplane. If you listen just right, you can almost imagine them producing next year’s biggest pop acts – which is by no means an insult.

Their metallic edge is sharpened, cunningly used to help balance their growing talents for song structures bordering on dark R&B. Whether or not their brand of noise has worn thin will determine your enjoyment of SLAVES OF FEAR, but fans who have reveled in watching the band lean into industrial will rejoice. Overblown drum samples, pummeling guitar shredding and trench-deep bass tones completely dominate this landscape. 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR picks up where 2015’s Death Magic left off, with the group embracing industrial music wholeheartedly. Not bad for a band that started in such a primal state. With each album, edition of DISCO or video game soundtrack, they improve on their own formula, becoming a more cunning machine. They returned a year after DISCO with Get Color, an album that decided to add those harsh synth elements in-house, as though the remixes turning out so well gave them permission to do something that had been part of the plan all along. After 2007’s spartan, screeching HEALTH spawned the transformative remix album, DISCO, (spawning the Crystal Castles classic “Crimewave” remix), the band mutated.

The career trajectory of Los Angeles noise punks HEALTH has been anything but predictable.

Health slaves of fear lzip