HEALTH’s Australian tour hit Melbourne’s Forum Theatre on last night, bringing Perturbator and King Yosef along for a triple bill built on noise, electronics and sheer physical force.
Opening proceedings was Portland’s King Yosef, who wasted little time turning the room over. Pulling together metal, noise and hardcore, his set brought an immediate sense of movement to the Forum, with the crowd bouncing and returning his vocals as the room began filling out.
French outfit Perturbator followed with a different kind of intensity. The two piece pushed the night into darker, more cinematic territory, building cybernetic soundscapes that felt indebted to the dystopian worlds of films such as Ghost in the Shell and Akira. Where King Yosef attacked, Perturbator pulled the room into something hypnotic and increasingly ominous.
HEALTH gallery
Then came HEALTH.
The Los Angeles trio have built an unusually strong connection with Australian audiences, something vocalist Jake Duzsik discussed with us ahead of this tour.
“It has been one of the fastest growing… our best fan bases are the United States and Australia, unquestionably,” he told us in July.
Melbourne offered another example of that relationship. HEALTH’s set moved between punishing, pulsing electronics and the haunting calm of Duzsik’s vocals, creating the kind of controlled musical mayhem that has allowed the band to move comfortably between industrial, electronic and heavy music audiences.
That crossover has become increasingly important to HEALTH. Following their Australian Knotfest appearance and a run of European metal festivals, Duzsik told BLUNT those experiences had directly affected their approach to new material.
“We could see, like, oh, we need some more kinetic, higher tempo, just physical aggressive songs to tailor a live experience for this kind of setting.”
There was no disappearing backstage to manufacture an encore, either. Before the final song, Duzsik told Melbourne that when HEALTH said it was their last track, they meant it.
Rather than promising they would see everyone again soon, he kept the focus on the present.
Then HEALTH hit one final time and left the Forum there.
Perturbator gallery
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