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Album Review
HEALTH – HEALTH DISCO 2
HEALTH
Health Disco 2
[City Slang]
8/10


By now we really should expect the unexpected from LA noise quartet HEALTH. Their first remix album that turned their abrasive, semi-listenable debut into a record of techno bangers should have seen to that, and the whole commercially-fingering ‘Die Slow’ episode. The latest curveball in the band’s perpetual goal to sound like no-one else – not even themselves – is this reworking of last year’s ‘Get Color’ LP, featuring such savvy meddlers as Salem, Gold Panda and Javelin.

The brief seems to have been to produce an ambient, electronic record with an almost summery disposition, and that’s been achieved quiet brilliantly, from Small Black’s woozy reworking of ‘Severin’ to Javelin’s take on ‘In Heat’, which sounds something like Toto’s ‘Africa’. Four artists show everyone else up though, and that’s HEALTH themselves who supply the opening, original track ‘USA Boys’, which judders and snaps like Timberland and can’t help to question why this band don’t just make a dance record from scratch.

By Mandy Drake

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ZOMBY – NOTHING
Nothing
[4AD]
6/10

Your worst fears about ‘Nothing’ are probably right. The late-year, post-album extended-play sounds like the runoff of a few constructions that didn’t make the cut for ‘Dedication’.

MILAGRES – GLOWING MOUTH
Glowing Mouth
[Memphis Industries]
3/10

Milagres are a Brooklyn-based quintet fronted by a certain Kyle Wilson, whose soaring vocal style sits somewhere between Thom Yorke and Chris Keating of Yeasayer.

FOE – BAD DREAM HOTLINE
Bad Dream Hotline
[Vertigo]
6/10

On first encounter, ‘Bad Dream Hotline’ is your standard emo-goth release – black on black cover art, tracks called things like ‘A Handsome Stranger Called Death’ and ‘Dance & Weep’.

STANDAR FARE – OUTS OF SIGHT, OUT OF TOWN
Out of Sight, Out of Town
[Melodic]
3/10

‘Out of Sight, Out of Town’ is an album that concerns itself, in the main, with casual sex.

LA VAMPIRES – SO UNREAL
So Unreal
[Not Not Fun]
8/10

When LA Vampires first released ‘So Unreal’ on a limited vinyl run in 2010 it sold out in a flash, perhaps because of its superbly kitsch artwork by Spencer Longo.

DAN MANGAN – OH FORTUNE
Oh Fortune
[Merge]
8/10

Dan Mangan is a husky-voiced, melancholic Canadian singer-songwriter who does all the things you expect husky-voiced, melancholic Canadian singer-songwriters to do.

FAVOURITE SONS – THE GREAT DEAL OF LOVE
The Great Deal of Love
[Low Rent]
7/10

Favourite Sons is the most recent project of Ken Griffin, formerly of nineties outfits Rollerskate Skinny and Kid Silver.

FRANK ALPINE – FRANK ALPINE
Frank Alpine
[Weird]
7/10

Synth enthusiasts must have been veritably jumping with joy of late (would a synth enthusiast do that sort of thing?).

MARK SULTAN – WHATEVER I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT
Whatever I Want, Whenever I Want
[In The Red]
6/10

A long lasting member of the American garage rock scene since the late Eighties, Mark Sultan has cooked up a hotpot of a new album.

THE SOUND OF ARROWS – VOYAGE
Voyage
[Low Rent]
5/10

Some very big noises are being made in the mainstream press over this Swedish duo, and their calculated pop sensibilities go a long way to explaining that.