Crystal Castles w/HEALTH & Kontravoid: at Marathon Music Works (Nashville, TN) Thu. October 11, 2012

Crystal Castles w/HEALTH & Kontravoid

AC ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

For all their talk about how strange and abrasive their music is, the members of HEALTH clearly aspire to do more than just hit you with a barrage of noise. The L.A. quartet succeeds in that regard, thanks to a knack for wresting elegance from the charred sonic debris that it presents as songs. If HEALTH’s sense of craft wasn’t obvious to you before, it’s impossible to deny on the band’s latest album, the shockingly restrained soundtrack for the video game Max Payne 3. A sharp contrast to the game’s gory first-person-shooter graphics, the album’s serene ambience likewise marks a significant departure from the tumultuous squall of HEALTH’s previous albums and live show. Nonetheless, the new music only makes it easier to spot the skill-set the band possessed all along. Headliners and mutual admirers Crystal Castles also partake in aggressive synth-driven throb, so the pairing of the two bands makes a certain sense. But side by side with Crystal Castles’ ironic bluster, HEALTH’s pretension-free music goes off like a grenade — even when it doesn’t sound like one.

—Saby Reyes-Kulkarni