the first health album was alright in an all over the place kind of way. chucking fugly lumps and limbs of liars, boredoms, gang gang dance into one pungent percussive pot (i heart alliteration…) of noise. it had energy, bags of the stuff, but not much focus. half-formed like the melty beasts in (john carpenter’s) the thing. no patience to hang onto one idea for more than thirty seconds before bashing something else instead. which was fine when it clicked, but not so good when it seemed like a bunch of amphetamined sketchesdrunkenly cellotaped together.
now they’ve gleefully taken all the best bits from the first album, mashed them with sexual abandon into the remix album and given birth to this gorgeous little monster. all those mongoloid gary numan electro textures and vicious dream synths have been given an ugly polish (perhaps thanks to the crystal castles synergy and the nine inch nails tour) leaving the record shiny and smudged, filthily content, grubbily sated, all smeared lipstick and grinning post-coital, panties round ankles.
big black gone disco? or more accurately albini’s guitar on rapeman with zinging industrial beats behind it? the noise and spazzery are all still there but it’s been sharpened and honed, inclusive of melody, actual melody, and structure, actual structure. don’t tell anyone, but some of it’s really quite listenable (die slow is a great fucking pop song).
and the freakouts (oh those freakouts…) when they come are precise, like a knife sliding saucily between ribs.
it’s destruction made sexy. annihilation with a hard-on and glitterballs. flowing hot jizz-like over whiteknuckled fingers and down creamy thighs. and it does glide like the first one didn’t. lurching grooves and askew bombast. throbbing and thumping music for making weird love to yr old lady with. is it wrong to find this so very sensual?
