06/03/2025

Health – Double Whammy: March 5, 2025 (13th Floor Concert Review)

Los Angeles Industrial Electro Metal group HEALTH haven’t visited our shores since 2016, previously here in 2010 ()where they played to maybe 20 people at the now defunct Transmission Room).

They return because of their inclusion in KnotFest, which is touring Australia (Knotfest is based around Slipknot) The toru piece (a wha piece up until 2015 or 2016), consisting of BJ Miller on drums, John Famiglietti on bass and synthesizers, and Jake Duzsik on vocals and guitar released their latest album Rat Wars in December 2023, possibly their darkest, loudest, heaviest and hardest album to date.

There is a friendly doorman, making his (sometimes) mundane mahi more interesting with a quip, asking the punters if they are here for a health check, it gets a few laughs. The merch table, inside the public bar is a hive of action, t-shirts are flying, baubles are gazed upon, though tahi in particular is causing mirth. The HEALTH authorised butt plug is… unique, as far as band merch goes, to this reviewer.

Grecco Romank

I’m late, Grecco Romank are already on stage, better dressed than last time I saw them, and part way through their set. The filled whare is full of mohawks, studs, black t-shirts, piercings and body modifications – the darkside. Grecco Romank are delivering their menacing eurobeats and many in the audience are captivated. They are sounding tight and their waiata are flowing unburnished. The vibe of dark 90’s electro goth pervades, though a newish song surprises with it’s creeping pop aspects (care of Billie Fee’s vocals) it reminisces of German 90’s electro – art -pop band aka Propaganda. As a opening act for HEALTH, Grecco Romank benefit from their presence, helping to spread the faith, they keep their set tight, incisive and timely, leaving the crowd wanting more.

HEALTH
It’s great seeing HEALTH in Double Whammy tonight, because of its excellent viewing lines, it’s a superior mid-size venue for bands of HEALTH’s calibre. More please! HEALTH gets described as industrial (+ other genres) , but to be clear , we are talking about AMERICAN Industrial, which was influenced by the autochthonous UK Industrial scene (Throbbing Gristle, Test Dept, Cabaret Voltaire). We are talking about Ministry, KMFDM, Revolting Cocks and ultimately the mainstream crossover with NIN and to a lesser extent Crystal Method) which embrace electro-beats and metalism.

The whare is rammed by the time HEALTH appears from darkness on to the misty stage, faithful have flung themselves forward, while I take advantage of the tiered flooring at the back, to get a good line of sight. The numerate metal guitar from Duzsik alongside his cadence vocals, plus the animated, thunderous drums of Miller ,and bass / electro polyphony of Famiglietti, erupt offstage with the Identity from their covid era, dual albums DISCO4, washing through the whare.

On stage, HEALTH is animated, and enveloped by a smokey mist, with strobes and polarised lighting. Duzsik is stoic in position, with vocals and guitar in unison, he however, uses his arms and hands to anime the song’s lyrics, almost a form of sign-language. Meanwhile at the other end of the stage Famiglietti is like a pounding panther, strutting across the stage between bass and keys, hair flailing. And betwixt them, Miller creates the primeval beats that crash and boom, creating havoc and harmony in tandem.

As HEALTH tear through a a 19 song set that showcases 2023’s Rat Wars, (they play the magnificent Unloved thankfully) but dips into the bands whakapapa, there are few words, and the audience are somewhat dazed at times by the voracious time changes that inhibit the bands songs. It is the duality, schizophrenic nature of the music produced on stage, with its genre splicing precision, that creates a spectacle to be consumed, rather than felt.

In sound, vision and the throbbing, a duality emerges: harsh and sublime, metal and electro, rhythm and precipice, shafts And shadows, orchestral and explicit. As Duzsik drapes himself into his vocals (in a similar way to Placebo’s Brian Molko), a haze hovers above the band and in the whare, even as Ministry – like guitar fracture the crowd momentarily, there is an overarching gothic aesthetics, and you can feel like you are in a dream sequence in a David Lynch drama.

Talk is in short measure tonight, but when it happens Duzsik is effusive of being in Aotearoa and their own artistic egocentricity. And as the final song; DSM-V, a crowd-pleaser comes to it’s finale. Finally the very tall krautrock looking couple (who likely were drinking German wine) who stood right in front of us, meandered off, as we do too, to battle the throbbing queues, and possibly buy something special from the merch table.

Simon Coffey

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:

Health: