The title of HEALTH’s sixth album is as modern as it gets. “The DLC is a play on video game culture—downloadable content or expansion packs,” bassist and producer John Famiglietti tells Apple Music. “But it’s also a cheeky nod to what’s going on in the world right now, like, ‘Here’s more conflict or stuff you don’t like.’” CONFLICT DLC is also what Famiglietti and his bandmates, vocalist/guitarist Jake Duzsik and drummer B.J. Miller, consider an unofficial sequel to their 2023 album, RAT WARS. “Originally, it was conceived as a double album, but then we realized most double albums shouldn’t be double albums. So, the record is stand-alone, but technically it does go together with RAT WARS.” As such, the LA-based electronic/industrial trio used the same sonic template on both records but went bigger with CONFLICT DLC. “This album was written in response to playing all these huge metal festivals and arena shows, places we hadn’t been before,” Famiglietti says. “We made the music higher tempo, more hooky, but also taking a modern metalcore influence that we hadn’t done before.” Below, he comments on each track. “ORDINARY LOSS” “It’s very odd for us to open an album with a single. We had a song in its place that was definitely more of an intro, but Duzsik felt it wasn't cutting the mustard, so at the 11th hour, we just cut it off, and that’s why the album opens this way. I think this song is doing a lot of things we’ve done before, but they’re new. There’s a lot of things in the song we not exactly haven’t done, but they’re out of our normal wheelhouse. And there’s a quasi-breakdown in here.” “BURN THE CANDLES” “This song was written completely last minute because we also cut another song. We’re trying to get very high-tempo stuff, so we’re referencing a lot of our hard-style influences, just using something extremely high tempo and free in the context of our music.” “VIBE COP” “On RAT WARS, we were very brazen about our industrial-metal influences, and that’s what we did here. Obviously, this is our ode to Ministry and KMFDM. Willie Adler from Lamb of God plays guitar on this, which came out of a funny story. When the album was about 99 percent done, I was at a party with my friend Perturbator. It was like 5 am, and we were playing each other our new albums. His was finished, but ours wasn’t. So, I said, ‘If you hear something, just tell me because we’re not done.’ He liked everything else, but he said the riff we had on this song sucked. So, I called up Willie the next day. Guitar riffs are his bread and butter.” “TRASH DECADE” “This one, obviously, has a modern metalcore influence, but we did it in our own way. I don’t think anyone would confuse us with that type of music, but it definitely had an influence on this record. This also came out of bits and pieces that were left over from RAT WARS, especially the intro. Because we had this whole plan [for a double album], most of the album was rewritten, but there are parts that got reused and that’s definitely one of them.” “TORTURE II” “This interlude has lived in, like, eight forms. First, it was cannibalized to be used as part of “DON’T TRY” [from RAT WARS], and then we totally revisited it as something new. The reason why it’s called ‘TORTURE II’ is because the first one, the track ‘Torture,’ is on the Max Payne 3 soundtrack that we did. It’s a solo-guitar thing that’s similar to this.” “ANTIDOTE” “This is the smooth jam. It’s funny that this is called ‘ANTIDOTE.’ There used to be a lyric with the word ‘antidote’ in there, but it got cut because this is another song that went through so many fucking generations. We like to sit on songs for a long time and then revisit them, which is really a low-regret way to do it. God knows how many versions of this song we did. When we got rid of the ‘antidote’ lyric, there was no suitable title we could think of, so we just stuck with it.” “DARKAGE” “The title is ‘dark age’ stuck together, and the song is very much influenced by Godflesh, who we sampled on RAT WARS. They have a song called ‘New Dark Ages,’ so this is a little nod to that. Sticking the words together made it a little more HEALTH, we felt. It’s also the oldest song on the album. It was actually part of RAT WARS, but we decided to not put it on the record, and we were going to get rid of it, but we leaked it to some of the fans, and they really liked it, so we ended up using it.” “SHRED ENVY” “At the shows we’ve been playing lately, what goes off the most is ‘DSM-V’ from RAT WARS. People just want more of this uptempo industrial metal, so it’s just like, ‘All right, let’s do another one.’ Basically, we respond to market pressure. We give the fans what they want.” “YOU DIED” “This is one of the more, I guess you could say, poppy singles. It’s very much in the style of witch house, which we grew up on, and is fresh again for the kids now—which is really great. There seems to be a whole new generation of kids discovering and doing that sound. Originally, the demo had a more gothy flavor, and we were just like, ‘We’ve been associated with witch house forever; we can do a witch house song.’” “THOUGHT LEADER” “Lyrically, this is the one that’s really about modern times and screens. We don’t have to explain the lyrics or anything—I think they’re pretty clear. Musically, you might say it’s electronic Deftones. A lot of these songs came from, ‘What if we take the zone of RAT WARS and do more?’ and ‘What does the live set need?’ or ‘What are we missing?’ That’s been very useful for us.” “DON’T KILL YOURSELF” “I think this is my favorite song on the album. It’s another one that went through endless generations dating back through the RAT WARS sessions and sounded completely different in the very beginning. It’s oceans apart. If you look at the credits, there’s a lot of people on there. I just kept changing what it was, and now it’s very slow and emotional. It came out really well. It has a guitar solo, which is rare for us. But it’s a really great guitar solo.” “WASTED YEARS” “Because this is also the title of one of Iron Maiden’s biggest songs, I thought we should call it ‘Wasted Years 2025’ or something. But that made it too long, and it was fucking up the album cover. So, now everyone who hasn’t heard it yet thinks we did a Maiden cover. But it’s not. It was actually the original ending of RAT WARS. That version was almost a Depeche Mode-style song, but it became something very different. It’s the hopeful ending to the bleak album, and it brings it all together. If you listen to RAT WARS and CONFLICT DLC in a row, starting with ‘DEMIGODS’ and ending with ‘WASTED YEARS,’ it feels like the credits roll.”