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HEALTH
Joshua Wells & Karina Utomo
@ Manning Bar, Sydney,
3rd August 2024
(Live Review)

Review and photos by Rob Mezzatesta (@robmezzphoto)

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HEALTH / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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Industrial rock noise band HEALTH have finally made it back to our shores to unleash their Rat-based warfare tour on the country. Promoting their latest release Rat Wars, the Californian trio played their last show of the tour to an eager sold-out crowd at the Manning Bar, supported by Brisbane-based trap/metal/industrial/emo artist ZHEANI and the Melbourne duo of JOSHUA WELLS & KARINA UTOMO for some experimental noise and beats.

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Joshua Wells & Karina Utomo / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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Joshua Wells & Karina Utomo

Opening up the night, KARINA UTOMO paced and stalked across the stage in near darkness, two microphones in hand, letting out atmospheric vocal growls and tormented yelps in an exorcism of sound that came straight from the soul. All this while JOSHUA WELLS manned the decks and worked the drum machine to produce tantric tribal rhythms and beats that hit you right in the guts. The set was a continuous thirty-minute session of what seemed improvised; but progressively lifted and dropped to gather the crowd into the quickly filling room.

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ZHEANI / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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ZHEANI

Next up, ZHEANI marches onto the stage to screams of an obviously adoring crowd. The performance is immediately commanding. ZHEANI is a powerhouse, bouncing across the stage and working the crowd into a frenzy. The show was all about action, sexually charged gyrations and explosive lights. There were even several excursions off the stage to the barriers to give some targeted, in your face attention to those worshipping the loudest in the front row.

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HEALTH / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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HEALTH

The diverse crowd is now jam packed into the room, it’s a sea of black with painted faces, piercings and body modifications all waiting for the show to start. As the room plunges into darkness, the crowd erupts as the shadowy figures of the band make their way onto the stage and begin the onslaught.

The band ease into the set with the industrial heartbeat of IDENTITY and progressively ratchet up the assault on the senses, on a mission to engulf all the bodies in the room into an industrial crucible of sound. The clinical metal guitar sounds of Jake Duzsik, thumping drums of Benjamin Jared Miller and bass / electro noises of John Famiglietti were fit to wake the dead with an epileptic light show that would have the freshly woken dead bouncing and rolling across the room.

The crowd turned into a mass of swaying and bobbing heads, while on stage Famiglietti was like a caged animal, strutting their quadrant of the stage between bass and keys, flinging hair like a windmill; Miller was all flailing arms and sticks and Duzsik standing ground solidly at the mic.

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HEALTH / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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Banter was kept to a minimum through the show, rolling through the set in a punishing performance that was all industrial hammer and tongs trailing one song into another like rolling thunder.

HEALTH don’t do encores, Duzsik explained that they are not into the pretence of walking off stage only to walk back on again but wanted to leave us all with “some good energy”. They finished up with DSM-V, one of their longer tracks which had the room enraptured and yelling in appreciation.

Drumsticks were flung into the crowd and the show was over, leaving the room buzzing in the chaotic climax of the performance like an industrial metal afterglow.

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HEALTH / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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Set List

IDENTITY
GOD BOTHERER
CRACK METAL
MEN TODAY
HATEFUL
ZOOTHORNS
PSYCHONAUT
STONEFIST
NEW COKE
FUTURE OF HELL
DEMIGODS
MAJOR CRIMES
UNLOVED
BODY / PRISON
BE QUIET AND DRIVE
ASHAMED
TEARS
WE ARE WATER
FEEL NOTHING
CYBERPUNK
DSM‐V

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Check out Rob Mezzatesta’s (@robmezzphoto) full gallery of this event HERE

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HEALTH / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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Follow DESTROY ALL LINES

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HEALTH / Photo – @robmezzphoto

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Press Release 13th June 2024 (below) HERE

HEALTH
release electrifying
debut collaboration with
LAUREN MAYBERRY (CHVRCHES)

ASHAMED (FEAT. LAUREN MAYBERRY) out now 
from acclaimed latest LP RAT WARS

Touring Nationally
this July and August

With special guests
ZHEANI + JOSHUA WELLS
& KARINA UTOMO

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AMNPLIFY – DB