For Los Angeles noise rockers Health, the apocalypse cannot come soon enough. “Let the guns go off/ Let the bombs explode/ Let the lights go out,” the quartet sing on New Coke, their third album’s first single, marrying the worldview of survivalists to the sound of a Neil Tennant-fronted Nine Inch Nails. As those references indicate, Death Magic is dated and, for all its attention-seeking titles (Drugs Exist, Hurt Yourself), dull. Victim tries to be threatening but fails miserably; the venomous Men Today detaches techno from its roots. When they let some light in they’re almost interesting, but for the most part Health are eternal sixth-formers – disgruntled and as if unsure what it is they want to say.
