Electro-industrial rock band HEALTH, composer/producer Tyler Bates and Deftones frontman Chino Moreno teamed up on a new song called “Anti-Life,” from the Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack. The soundtrack album will be released in full this Friday, June 18 via Loma Vista Recordings in collaboration with DC Comics.

“Anti-Life” alternates between a highly-rhythmic industrial pattern during the verses and a more atmospheric chorus section. There’s a sense of despair behind the down-moments that translates into the more intense fluctuations. Bates’ cinematic expertise can also be heard in the trailer-ready blasts of guitar noise and the very DC Comics-friendly outro part. HEALTH’s frontman Jake Duszik and Moreno sing in harmony for much of the song, but the melodies sound straight out of Moreno’s playbook.

HEALTH’s last single was a collaboration with Nine Inch Nails called “Isn’t Everyone.” They’re known to be a highly collaborative act, who released a compilation of their recent joint singles called Disco4 :: Part 1, which features songs that they recorded with Soccer Mommy, Youth Code, 100 Gecs, JPEGMAFIA, Ghostmane, Xiu Xiu and Full of Hell. They also shared a remix album of those songs called DISCO4+ earlier in the year, which also included a remix of the track that they contributed to the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack called “Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.” 

In February 2021, Moreno was featured on a Trippie Redd track titled “Geronimo.” His side project, †††, announced late last year that they were working on new material, around the time that his most famous band, Deftones, released their latest album, Ohms.

Tyler Bates is best known for his work on the scores for films like 300 (2006), Watchmen (2009), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), John Wick (2014) and the sequels to each of those last two, among others. He worked closely with each of the artists involved with the Dark Nights: Death Metal Soundtrack. 

The other songs that have been released from the soundtrack so far include Rise Against’s “Broken Dreams, Inc.,” Mastodon’s “Forged By Neron,” Maria Brink of In This Moment’s “Meet Me in the Fire,” featuring Andy Biersack of Black Veil Brides and Chelsea Wolfe’s “Diana.” The other artists who contributed to the album are Grey Daze, Manchester Orchestra, Denzel Curry, Carach Angren, Starcrawler, Gunship, Greg Puciato, Gil Sharone, Show Me The Body, IDLES and Soccer Mommy. 

Dark Nights: Death Metal is a DC Comics event that brings all of their main storylines together into a grand spectacle, which also includes a short film voice-acted by Chelsea Wolfe, Andy Biersack and actor Charles Fleischer. It’s a sequel to 2018’s Dark Nights: Metal, which had a similar soundtrack.

Photo credit: Raymond Flotat