[Album Review]: HEALTH - ‘Conflict DLC’ LP.
Experimental, avant-garde and progressive music (particularly in the heavy and alternative music scenes) is experiencing somewhat of an arms-race at present. It’s less confrontational and competitive than the metaphor’s real-world equivalent, but it certainly exists nonetheless.
From the interesting and expansive territory explored in the extreme metal scene of late, through to ever-increasing (and delicious) fusion of industrial, experimental electronica and metal, it’s clear there’s a strong onus on being boundary-pushing.
That said, the pressure and/or creative onus to consistently outpace oneself and one’s peers doesn’t immediately translate to a well-written album. Just about everyone reading this will likely have a personal example of an artists’ stylistic shift that didn’t exactly stick the landing. Choosing to focus on foundational elements and the core tenets of an artists’ sound isn’t always resting on laurels. If this is where creative inclinations lead, it’s often important not to shelf the magnetic pull in that direction just for the sake of making something progressive, envelope-pushing, etc.
In essence, this is an album that follows intuition and its’ own accord. Relaxing on that background pressure to stay ahead of the curve has, in the case of HEALTH’s latest album, ironically resulted in something I feel vaults them even further ahead of their contemporaries. The Los Angeles electronic-metal trio’s sixth LP CONFLICT DLC, released on December 11th via Loma Vista Recordings, with (fantastic) production and mixing courtesy of Stint (Ajay Bhattacharyya) and Drew Fulk, respectively.
With the former being renowned for works with artist such as Lana Del Rey and Carlie Rae Jepsen, and the band picking up Fulk on the strength of his recent efforts with Knocked Loose, you can’t even get past album credits without taking note of attention to detail. HEALTH are an act with broad, diverse music community appeal, and it’s the sincerity with which they employ metallic, electronic and harmonic elements alike that underlies said popularity.
On a personal note, I’ve got to give the artist serious metalhead cred as being one of the first electronica-based acts to make it through option-paralysis and stiff creative competition for a spot on my Top Albums of 2025. A tough call and one which honestly surprised me, as someone who’s only recently entered HEALTH listener fandom.
CONFLICT DLC both affirms and acknowledges the huge critical/fanbase successes of DISCO4: PART II and RAT WARS, but is perfectly capable as a standalone full-length. I find this especially impressive given the fact that CONFLICT DLC was initially intended for release as a B-sides EP of leftover takes. RAT WARS: PART II if we’re utilising the bands’ CAPS LOCK AND ROMAN NUMERALS-FRIENDLY nomenclature to date.
As you’ll see both via the current review and your own listens, there’s a solid rationale for giving this DLC its’ own release as a full-fledged expansion, as opposed to a tacked-on microtransaction.
But first - This is Inner-Strength Check, and I am known for the stereotypically-AuDHD double dose of overly explanatory verbal/written style, often spending a pretty hefty amount of time providing context and background.
I’ll be comparatively brief here, though (phew, the readers say). The album’s just simply too good, and I’d prefer to get stuck straight into all the reasons I love it rather than narrative walkabout. That’s also the mark of a great album, by the way.
Getting a neurodivergent with a fully busted-up frontal lobe past their own well-entrenched writing ‘quirks’ cough SYMPTOMS cough ? Mate, that’s a feat all on its’ own, trust me.
Nevertheless, forgive me a brief paragraph or two of context-crumbs prior to exploring the album in question. It certainly feels necessary given just how much my enjoyment of this album was both expected and a complete blindside.
Historically, HEALTH was a band I had loose mental associations attached to, especially during their seemingly-sudden blowup in the late 2010’s/early-2020’s. e.g. from the Max Payne OST and collaborations with various metal musicians (Randy Blythe being one of many examples), they’re an act unfortunately all too easy to pre-emptively treat with pre-emptive indifference, assumptions and the like.
Any band that’s featured on multiple video game titles post Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 unfortunately gets a reflexive “that’s nice, Dear” from my brain’s top-down processing, assuming some form of marketable, play-it-safe appeal. A sentiment reinforced by gaming culture, and my own unfair association with it as a place mainly inhabited by predictably digestible electronica/’metal’ rehashes of [Insert Nostalgic Game Title/Series Here] OST. Something-something, assumptions making an ass of u and me.
Admittedly, it was the live front where I first found my appreciation for the US trio proper. Specifically, an insanely fun set at Arctangent Festival in the UK was where I experienced that wonderful transmutation from an online entity to real, proficient, skilful and fun musicians who do in fact also inhabit meat-space. For what it’s worth, that set was some of the most outright fun blending of headbanging, dancing, booty-shaking and moshing I’ve seen and/or experienced outside of say, Combichrist or Infectious Grooves in a live setting. VERY fun.
Fun as it was from this perspective, it reaffirmed a notion I’ve long held about heavy and alternative music, electronic or not. That is, you don’t necessarily need to be writing or performing up-tempo extreme metal in order to create something with serious sonic gravitas and crushing intensity. Sometimes, crushing the midsection with a bass-heavy mid-tempo tune works as well as anything hyperblasting - just ask Obituary or any number of doom metal fans.
Not that these guys rest on their laurels in terms of tempo, pacing or songwriting in general. Not at all.
Which brings us to the current day, CONFLICT DLC, and opening track ‘Ordinary Loss’. A fairly whimsical title, it’s one that concisely conveys a lot of the melancholic or even downright depressive lyrical themes the band are known for. That’s right, it’s sadboi-hours here at HEALTH HQ once more. You’re already reading a review on an alternative-music focused blog, so I’ll readily assume you’re past the cultural hangovers of Ronald Reagan and the PMRC. It’s assumed knowledge my Dear Readers are nuanced enough to separate negatively charged concepts/themes and aggressive music from stereotypes about the resulting emotional response.
For me, the opening track is reflective of the shit-eating grin brandished the whole way through my beer-and-cider-soaked sunny afternoon stomp during aforementioned festival slot, a while back.
Commencing with the prowl of eerie yet comforting pads and rising synth-strains courtesy of bassist/programmer genius John Famiglietti, the progression feels like that normally reserved for your average metal album. It feels especially so with the absolute thunderclap of industrial-metal riffage that ensues shortly afterward, courtesy of guitar-sporting vocalist Jake Duzsik and the fluid-yet-stoic rhythm work of B.J. Miller from the drum-throne.
Metal’s indeed an appropriate descriptor, with this opener feeling like some of the bands’ heaviest material to date. I immediately stand to attention, knocked out of my default perpetually-semi-dissociated-via-overthinking state in particular by way of Jake’s jarring transition from and back to crooning, smooth clean vocals by way of seriously gnarly black metal-esque shrieks. Wait, what?! Dude! Awesome. Given the albums’ focus on the alienating, anxiety-provoking listlessness experienced by our hyper-digital age, the degradation and choppiness of the track’s final measures feels like a perfect analogue to sensory/cognitive overwhelm.
I’m honestly outright thrown from the juxtaposition between this very RAT WARS-facing first track when follow-up ‘Burn The Candles’ does a sharp 180-degree turn into a hookier, more familiar structural framework. Contrasting sharply with the prior number, ‘Candles’ is steeped in a rich mix of gritty bass-drone, thudding drumwork and devilishly catchy alt-pop vocal phrasing. Lyrically exploring the painfully-familiar dangers associated with “burning the candle at both ends” (a sentiment all too real for many of us right now), the relatability juxtaposes nicely with the more experiential feel of the album’s opener.
Huh, oh-kay then! If you were expecting a club-ready wall-shaking thumper to round out the sonic exhibition, then you’d be completely unsurprised by the chest-caving rumble of ‘VIBE COP’. Doing exactly as one would expect from such a title, the rhythmic pulse follows an authoritative, steady and urgent pacing from start to finish. It works fantastically well for a Cyberpunk: 2077/Neuromancer musical vibe (pun not intended, but ‘cop’ it anyway - HEH) and evokes a gritty, dystopian aesthetic without coming off at kitsch or overplayed. These more weighty musical themes are contrasted nicely with the lyrical content, which essentially feels like a homage to shitposting and meme culture. Is the band concerned about the clash between these mental images? No. And that’s why it works.
By this stage in the album, you’re reminded why the band has garnered so much acclaim and popularity of late. On paper, the depiction of an artist as melding industrial, metal and alternative pop risks being pre-emptively compartmentalised by prospective listeners as something far less idiomatic or original in 2025 than, say, somewhere on the original Matrix soundtrack. Admittedly, I’ve probably passed up on both similar artists and this band in the past due to similar loose associations.
Which is why the near-violent eruption of ‘TRASH DECADE’ is well-slotted on the tracklist order. Bursting forth like a chestburster, the additive distortion and grit splayed over the fourth track feels as close in orbit to noise/experimental hip-hop act Dalek as it does to the spaced-out up-tempo thrash of bands like Vexovoid and Vektor. Bemoaning a sort of spiritual eviction not unlike that lamented on Nevermore’s This Godless Endeavour, there’s otherwise a strong punk-rock ethos baked into the pulsating rhythm and pressured vocal delivery. As a millenial, it serves as nice catharsis for the nagging knowledge that our generations’ prime was/is comparatively more bereft of cultural richness and sincerity than our forebears. It’s a straightforward piece, but it conveys the gnawing frustration with the accelerating process of McDonaldization of, well, everything.
Link to ‘TRASH DECADE’ official music video, via the artists’ Youtube channel:
‘TORTURE II’ is less concerned with social consciousness, serving as an punchy interlude of just over 60 seconds in length. The metalhead crossover appeal of this band isn’t surprising overall, but it’s cleverly reiterated by this brief but mechanically precise intermission. Seriously, you could plonk this tightly-wound little ditty on something like The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Miss Machine or a new Fear Factory album, and no one would bat an eyelid. It’s not exactly deathly heavy, nor does it need to be, just a nice dab of industrial glue not just between tracks, but across genres/scenes.
‘ANTIDOTE’ predictably overturns the spikier texture of the prior two tracks, vaulting back over the fence to swipe the karaoke mic at the neighbours’ pool party. Like a successful night out where you’ve been able to drift between multiple friend groups, nothing feels forced about the pendulum swing back to a more familiar aural base. If anything, the track deftly wields the dual-dagger sonic heft of industrial and metal very comfortably aside the lilting soar of lighter, almost fragile clean vocals throughout. Touching on the themes of addiction and reliance on numbing pharmacology as the ideal way to shut out our overstimulated reality if only for a moment, there’s an intermingling with musical and lyrical romanticism that has a strong Type O Negative vibe. I’m not a betting man but if pressed, I’d throw all my chips on the table in wagering Peter Steele would be a massive fan of these guys, were he alive today.
Where the previous track skirts more nebulously around its’ underlying message via adjective and metaphorical terms, ‘DARKAGE’ is either unashamedly autistic, or a musical personification of drunk uncles at the Christmas family get-together. There’s no energy expended in subverting the message behind veils - it’s straight for the throat in the titular, lyrical and musical sense. The tempo here feels its’ most militaristic of the whole album, guitars and rhythm section planted within almost unfeeling mechanical stoicism as we’re fed vocals that contrastingly warble and undulate with choppy, processed electronic interference. Like every other track on the album, despite the moribund social commentary and existential dread baked into both the instrumental and lyrical performance, there’s a strong adherence to both brain-rattling bass-heavy stomp and hook-laden melodic flair. Poppy, dingy, dark, catchy, fun - it’s a goth’s dream.
Speaking of catchy? Jesus Christ, dudes/dudettes/dudefolk - ‘SHRED ENVY’ commands the most earworm-inducing parasitic chorus of the whole album, I’d argue. And that’s saying something when, even on first listen, you find yourself engaging in echolalia as chorus refrains infect your mind anew. You’ll walk away from a listen of this album with numerous grappling hooks wedged in the hippocampus, and these guys are expert climbers. Much like the paradoxically depressive nature of retro pop, it feels jarring to be warbling the main refrain of “I wish I’d never been born” in moments where your emotional state isn’t aligned to such a sentiment. If it and when it is, it’s another fresh exhalation of cathartic, caustic industrial-pop-metal air. It should be antithetical to the driving rhythmic kick-battery of the drums and bass, and especially so against the traditionally-metal feel of the histrionic lead work on display. The metalhead in me is also veritably booming a resounding hell yeah brother for being provided such a delicious panoply of thrashy shred-licks in my industrial metal, too. Yummy.
Having sated us thrash-metal addicts somewhat, ‘YOU DIED’ then opts to pay homage to those within the fanbase who are absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent online on Discord as you read this review (irrespective of time of day). The caps-lock gimmick works particularly well with the title, which is sporadically chanted throughout what overall amounts to our most electronica-focused track thus far. There’s a sense of self-aware satire on this track, utilising a mix of watertight mid-tempo riffs and interesting electronic flourishes in such a way that evokes big ‘just cracked my first Mountain Dew of this six-hour MMO raid’ without being yet another tepid, watered-down electronica mix found on, say, raid-length mixes on Youtube. The deliberate playfulness and no-fucks-given approach helps reiterate this is homage, not just an act of forced fan-service ‘cause I don’t know, game OST’s.
Again, following fairly predictable emotive shifts isn’t something HEALTH shy away from in the moment-to-moment transition between tracks. The playfulness of ‘YOU DIED’ ebbs back into a more melancholic and dark-romantic flavour in ‘DON”T KILL YOURSELF’. No prizes for guessing the overarching emotional tone and weight on this one. Thankfully, it’s not the musical equivalent of so much insipid nonce we see in our working lives via ‘wellbeing’ seminars and the like. There’s an open brittleness here in vocal delivery, coupled with a didactic swing between instrumental retraction and explosion. It gets slightly repetitive in places, but I think that’s the intent. Whilst I’ve mentioned this album isn’t exactly anxious about envelope-pushing, each track so far still sports a dynamic flow from start to finish. The hammer-like repetition of vocal and musical phrasing here feels urgent, sincere and earnest, a concerned friend repeating simple phrases and maxims in the knowledge that this works best for a heart and mind in crisis. No flowery corporate bullshit, no performative faux-concerned screeds, just simple, direct pulsing of a plea to pull back and know you’re here, safe, and not alone. The fact that’s delivered within such a dank, distorted and gritty, grimy meld of electronica and metal just adds to the frankness behind the underlying message.
And finally, we reach the album closer in ‘WASTED YEARS’. Say it with me everyone - “the track acts to summarise and culminate all the elements of the album so far in an epic final opus!”. You’ve heard it before in both albums and album reviews ad nauseum, and you’re probably glazing over somewhat as you read this paragraph. Don’t, though. Wakey-wakey.
There’s a dejected and forlorn strain to the vocal performance here that gives off far more of a melodic doom metal flavour than I was ever ready for from this band. Washing out the desperate concern of the prior track into hazy, murky but soft synth refrains, the glittery-yet-murky softness of the tracks’ first minute almost feels like resignation. I was surprised at how impactful this was for conveying an underlying expression of hopelessness that is easy to forget permeates the album (and indeed the discography proper). You can tangibly feel the fingertips release a little more on Famigletti’s bass, Miller’s snare-thwacks and drum-kicks employed with less forcefulness. In a real post-metal fashion that absolutely gets my Cult of Luna loving motor running, the pensive lead work joins the rhythm duo in swelling towards a building crescendo. Altogether, it adds to a finale that evokes Swallow the Sun and Radiohead in equal measure. It’s a brooding and introspective finale, and doesn’t feel a need to kick up a huge musical stink or act as some curriculum vitae of the bands’ musical prowess. Think ‘A Therapy For Pain’ from Demanufacture-era Fear Factory in terms of a softly mournful closer to act as the album’s requiem.
Perhaps my flowery and verbose writing style is going to induce unfair expectations about CONFLICT DLC, in your mind. I’ve taken extra time here to outlay the subtlety and texture of an album that is, all things said and done, rather straightforward and hook-heavy in comparison to the previous two records.
As a relatively new fan of this band, I’ll say that the current album acts much in the same way as others’ final tracks do. That is, as mentioned, to tie together the previous works into one cohesive correspondence. It’s both a fantastic starter for those not yet initiated, and faithful industrial metal/alt-pop service to longer term fans.
It’s not their most experimental work, but in my opinion it’s the most well-rounded and hardest-hitting I’ve heard the band to date.
This one comes very highly recommend - do be sure to check out the rest via the artist links below, and show ‘em some support.
(Listen to the ‘Shred Envy’ single here and watch the music video here):