HEALTH

After spending a handful of years leafing through thesauri and dictionaries in search of the precise term with which to characterize HEALTH’s music, at least I can take comfort in the knowledge that they don’t quite know what the fuck they’re doing, either. The Los Angeles-based noise-electronica-whateverthefuck band’s post-Lolla set wasn’t necessarily bad, but rather confounding: in length, in approach, in song selection. HEALTH opened with the hit single “Fifteen Minutes of Percussion with Sparse Riffs and Screaming,” which I can admit I sort of enjoyed, but the remainder of the set possessed little flow or continuity. The segue of choice between recognizable album cuts such as “Die Slow” and “Nice Girls” was lazy dissonance that seemed like background music for water breaks. And the band’s conduct on stage was rather baffling. They occasionally gesticulated and postured like an aging metal band (think Torche), which didn’t coalesce with their brand of sorta-ravy noise rock. In all, it was a disorienting display, some amalgam of out-of-place energy and feigned, passive-aggressive showmanship.

Honestly, it seemed like the band was regretting that they had booked a show after performing in the sweltering heat of Lolla; if you ask any band to play a show after a 45 minute set in 90-degree heat and a few too many beers backstage, it’s conceivable they might not bring their A-game. Yet, they played two transparent encores, and seemed really unhappy about it, as if the meager, tepid crowd was somehow imploring them to bang on their guitars against their will for a bit longer (their final encore was literally three minutes of microwaved cacophony that dribbled down the walls of the bar like a thimble-sized discharge of ejaculate). HEALTH are a band I quite like; I headed to the south end of downtown Chicago hoping to gain some insight into who HEALTH are, precisely. I came away with the impression that their identity is as approximate as their music suggests.