Review and photos: Nate Rose

There are some bills that make perfect sense on paper. Then there are bills that don’t really make sense until the first note hits, at which point you realise that whoever put the fucking thing together knew exactly what they were doing.

HEALTH bringing Perturbator and King Yosef together for the Brisbane opening night of their 2026 Australian tour was very much the latter. Three artists from different corners of the same dark, fucked-up universe of industrial, electronic, metal, hardcore, noise, synthwave and everything in between. This wasn’t a traditional heavy-music bill. It wasn’t an electronic bill, a hardcore show or a rock show. It was all of those things thrown into the same machine, shaken violently and spat back out under a wall of lights, bass and electronic noise.

And fuck me, did it work.

With a slight delay to the venue doors opening due to technical difficulties, the anticipation just continued to build as a long line of punters stretched through the streets of the Valley surrounding The Tivoli. Finally, once things got going, there was absolutely no gentle introduction to the evening.

King Yosef walked onto the stage with a sound seemingly designed to make the walls of The Tivoli question the structural integrity of the building.

Coming off Spire of Fear, Yosef occupies a particularly nasty little intersection between industrial music, hardcore, metal, noise and experimental electronics. His music doesn’t so much behave like conventional music as it does attack you from several different directions simultaneously. This shit is brutal, and in the best way. I was frothing from the first note. Distorted electronics grind against percussion; the low end feels like a hammer to the skull and the vocals are some of the best I have heard from a heavy vocalist. The energy Yosef has on stage, prowling from side to side, makes it hard not to lock onto him for the whole set.

The set opened with “Molting Fear”, followed by “The Dull Blade”, “Cut the Cord”, “Mist of Pain”, “Glimmer”, “Power” and “VI Coactus”. Even with the technical difficulties, there was no fucking around. No unnecessary bullshit. Just a concentrated blast of industrial hardcore brutality.

There is so much tension in this music, with electronics grinding against percussion, vocals sitting somewhere between hardcore confrontation and industrial nightmare, and enormous drops of low-frequency ugliness that seem to hit your chest before your brain has even worked out what the fuck is happening.

There is also a genuine physicality to Yosef’s performance. This isn’t somebody standing behind a laptop and pressing play. Yosef is accompanied by a touring drummer and an instrumentalist handling samples, keys and guitar. There’s a human intensity to it, and that makes a significant difference when you’re watching experimental electronic heavy music performed live.

Then came “Spire of Fear”. Rather than simply ripping into the track, Yosef dedicated it to all his homies. It was a small moment, but one that cut through all the noise surrounding the performance.
And whatever emotional moment had just happened was then swallowed whole by the fucking thing. King Yosef’s set was short, brutal and effective and I’m hoping for a headliner return very soon.

If King Yosef dragged the audience into the basement, Perturbator threw open the doors and revealed an entire city in darkness, with flashes of glowing neon on the other side.

Tonight was my introduction to Perturbator. I had heard the name before but had not actually heard them until my drive up to the venue tonight. After listening, I was intrigued to see what I was going to witness. James Kent’s Perturbator project exists at the intersection of synthwave, industrial, metal, electronic music and horror-film atmosphere, but seeing it live makes the whole thing considerably more immersive.

After the blunt-force assault of King Yosef, Perturbator didn’t attempt to compete with that heaviness, He simply changed the language. Suddenly, the aggression had rhythm, the darkness had colour, and this was where the bill really started to reveal its genius.

Perturbator doesn’t sound like HEALTH, but he absolutely belongs in the same universe, The pounding drums and enormous synth lines create a completely different kind of heaviness to what had come before. Where King Yosef’s set felt claustrophobic and confrontational, Perturbator’s world opened outward. It became cinematic and huge.

The whole thing had the atmosphere of a dystopian city at three in the morning, when the streets are wet, the neon is reflecting off everything, and you probably shouldn’t be walking down that particular alley. I genuinely felt like Blade could jump from the Tivoli mezzanine at any minute and start slaying vampires in the crowd.

And honestly, that would’ve been pretty fucking rad if it actually happened. The aesthetic was already there: the darkness, the pounding electronic soundtrack and the feeling that something violent was about to happen just outside the edges of the stage.

Perturbator’s lighting, or lack thereof from a photographer’s perspective, only intensified that sensation, and the crowd absolutely bought into it. Heads were nodding, bodies were bouncing and plenty of people were losing themselves in the heavy grooves as The Tivoli transformed into a dark, sweaty dancefloor. The visual component isn’t simply a decoration with this music. It becomes part of the performance itself. The huge electronic peaks, rhythmic repetition and synthesised textures naturally lend themselves to that cinematic vibe.

It felt like we were temporarily inside the machine. And then, almost as quickly as it began, it was over. And Blade unfortunately never showed.

After two completely different interpretations of industrial darkness, HEALTH finally walked onto the stage.

And there is something pretty satisfying about watching a band that has been around for almost two decades reach a point where they seem completely comfortable operating at the centre of their own strange universe.

HEALTH have spent years refusing to stay in one lane, pulling elements of noise, industrial, electronic music, metal and pop into their sound while also venturing into soundtracks, video games, collaborations and club culture. They’ve somehow managed to drag all of those influences into the same room without sanding off the abrasive edges that made them interesting in the first place. And live, that contradiction becomes even more obvious.

The songs can be brutally heavy while remaining ridiculously catchy. Vocalist/guitarist Jake Duzsik’s vocals sound dreamy while John Famiglietti’s bass and BJ Miller’s drums drive the low end through you like thunder. The production can be dense and punishing while the hooks still cut straight through, and then the lights hit and complement the audio assault perfectly. There were moments when the lights seemed to physically punch through the room alongside the music.

Opening with Evangelion‘s “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” over the PA before launching into “VIBE COP”, “TRASH DECADE” and “HATEFUL”, the band wasted absolutely no time establishing the tone. “Hello Bris Vegas,” Johnny yelled to the crowd as “SHRED ENVY” followed before the set dropped into “FEEL NOTHING”, and it’s difficult to think of a better example of what makes HEALTH so effective.

They can take something bleak, alienated and emotionally fucked and somehow turn it into something an entire room wants to move to. That’s one of the great contradictions at the center of HEALTH. You can dance to it, you can mosh to it, or you can stand there staring at the lights while contemplating the apparent collapse of civilisation, and somehow all three responses feel completely appropriate.

“ANTIDOTE” and “CRACK METAL” pushed into the newer material before “CHILDREN OF SORROW” and “ASHAMED” expanded the set’s emotional range. Then came “MAJOR CRIMES” and “TEARS”, the latter carrying the extra weight of its association with Max Payne 3, and another reminder of just how far HEALTH have managed to infiltrate popular culture without ever really becoming a conventional mainstream band.

Video games, film, soundtracks, remixes, collaborations, metal festivals and electronic audiences have all become different doors through which people can discover HEALTH. Knot fest a couple of years back is where I was introduced to Cum Metal, for example. HEALTH have spent years becoming one of those bands where you can discover them through completely different doors and somehow end up standing in the same room with everyone else. Then came “WE ARE WATER”.

It’s a reminder of where HEALTH came from and the strange cultural territory they occupy now. But it didn’t feel like a nostalgia trip. It felt like another chapter in the evolution of the band.

“YOU DIED”, “DEMIGODS” and “FUTURE OF HELL” followed, and somewhere around this point, the entire room seemed to be operating on the same wavelength. There was also something wonderfully entertaining about the interaction between the band and the Brisbane crowd.

“How you going, cunts?” A word we use so freely here that is mostly frowned upon in other countries. And then came a cultural reference that no one expected but somehow manages to cross every demographic imaginable:

Bluey.

Because apparently even an industrial/electronic apocalypse isn’t complete without acknowledging Australia’s national treasure. Johnny also conducted a live survey between songs with the Brisbane audience, turning the crowd into an impromptu focus group in the middle of an otherwise relentless and sonically punishing performance.

“If you have full lateral vagina’s put your hands up! Ok if you like Cum Metal put both your hands up and keep them up,” as the packed Tivoli all threw their hands up and screamed in unison. It’s one of those little moments that shows HEALTH’s humour and adds something completely different to the night.

It broke through the atmosphere of the show without destroying it and that’s probably part of what makes HEALTH work so well live.

The set continued through “ORDINARY LOSS”, “DON’T KILL YOURSELF” and finally “DSM-V”, which saw Duzsik enter the crowd and finish the set crowd surfing with the people. No encore Rockstar bullshit here. By this point, the brilliance of the bill was clear: none of the three acts were redundant.

King Yosef represented the rawest and most physically confrontational end of the spectrum, while Perturbator represented the cinematic and electronic side. HEALTH sat somewhere between the two, borrowing elements from both without ever completely belonging to either, the result was a night that felt like a progression rather than three unrelated performances and the Tivoli was the perfect room for it.

It was a fucking great combination and truly one of the great touring packages we have seen this year.

 – GALLERY –