2019 marks the year Blade Runner warned us about. Synthetic humanoids, flying cars, outer space colonies. In that same sci-fi dystopia, we’d surely all be listening to music like HEALTH.

The LA bruisers’ digitised take on heavy music has always held a future-facing appeal. On VOL 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR, that approach takes over. FEEL NOTHING is a stomping Transformer of a track, clipped synths coughing and spluttering like Optimus Prime after a twenty deck, while The Message’s menacing stomp pummels through with Code Orange’s Jami Morgan on backing vocals, roughing up the edges of this robotised call to arms. There’s barely a second that doesn’t hit as hard as possible, even HEALTH’s Jake Duzsik’s waifish vocal does little to ease the assault.

As SLAVES OF FEAR progresses, the constant bludgeoning becomes a little numbing. HEALTH’s heavy-shanded MO still packs a punch, though, and SLAVES OF FEAR proves that. We might not be living in the futuristic world we were once promised just yet, but we can still rely on HEALTH to push music out of its present-day comfort zone.

Tom Connick