Released:
Rating:
Health&Beauty bring the madness but present it in a well orchestrated format.
Label: Wichita
Released: August 5th 2016
Rating: ★★★
Wonderfully flirting between depressive and happy, Health&Beauty nail this fine line. Merging garage with psych-rock, the band manage to take an album that is only seven tracks and give it a shelf-life that seems never ending. Tracks that seemingly morph from one to another, it’s not until you look at the actual playtime that you realise they manage to compose a wealth of genres into one single, solitary song. The perfectly named ‘Beyond Beyoncè’ goes from loud and dark to soft and slow over it’s five and a half minute duration, with some screaming guitar solos in-between.
The first glimpse at this new material was from the single ‘Wartime’ which actually featured a Neil Young lyric (that no longer features – boo Neil!) in it’s original form. Though where this once was is now an absolutely face-melting pedal steel solo, something that adds an extra dynamic to this number (Cheers Neil!).
Even taking on mildly jazz-like qualities, specifically during album title track ‘No Scare’, the instrumentation becomes hurried and frantic while the vocals remain calm and focused around this chaos. Finale ‘Riverside Cemetery’ takes on an almost a stature of resolution with it’s placement. Through the winding ups and downs of the previous six tracks, at the end we’re left with a nicely tied bow that closes off this rollercoaster journey.
With a running time similar to that of a punk album, and an attitude fit for it also, Health&Beauty bring the madness but present it in a well orchestrated but at times confused format. Steven Loftin
