Review: Daft Punk – Human After All

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been very busy, and I’m just getting over tonsillitis. I sound like GLaDOS with a cold. >.>

Anyway, here goes.

Before the ranting commences, please, allow me to state one thing: I don’t like dancing.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying I don’t like it whatsoever, or that dancing isn’t fun; it’s just that outside the club environment I’m not likely to begin stomping and flailing my arms about when I feel a strong beat. Not even when I’m home alone. Especially not when I’m home alone. Everyone already suspects I’m a lunatic.

Really – whether my thoughts on Human After All would suffice for a small ‘no’ scribbled onto paper (in blood, for better effect) or a redundantly long tome, I’m simply not of Daft Punk’s target audience.

The album opens with the title track – ‘Human After All’, with some crunchy vocoder work that produces an interesting sound, drawing you in. (Kicking and screaming.) However, it’s overly repetitive – as I was to find out, this is not a rarity – and has some hackneyed chord progressions. It needs a stronger beat supporting it all; the sound design just doesn’t work.

This is quickly followed by ‘The Prime Time Of Your Life’. The dissonances they created between the parts were nice, but they fell at the way they delivered them. The ending (in which the loop gets progressively faster and faster) was unnecessary and left no room for track development.

We also get ‘Robot Rock’; hands down, the best track on the album. It features a super-catchy, flanger-heavy riff with –gasp- some actual developed ideas here! It’s sounding like a real track! However the vocals could have come straight out of a Kraftwerk track. I assume this was intentional, but still, it didn’t really sound right. I’m willing to excuse that – if they did that sort of track all the time, I’d normally listen to this band!

Departing from a safer sound is ‘Make Love’. It sounds like a little theme that was responsible for the demise of the poor souls that were put on hold and lost the will to live.

The screams and alternating choppy vocals and rhythm on ‘The Brainwasher’ create a dystopian, cyberpunk atmosphere. And it’s awesome. However, the song is very technically simple so that immediately spoiled it.

‘Television Rules The Nation’: ironically, Daft Punk’s music (and remixes) seems to be used quite a lot in TV adverts. Stop biting the hand that feeds you and go and buy some more synths! The same style of design on all of the tracks sounds lazy and boring.

Now, the infamous ‘Technologic’. The short and sweet beats give a sense of moving forward in the track. However, chipmunk voices are annoying without fail. (Even robot chipmunks.)

‘Emotion’ can be summed up in two lines: The same four bars over and over (and over and over and over and over and over) again.

I am not surprised when I hear the album was created in six weeks. I understand this minimalistic, repetitive approach is endearing for some – and some of the tracks are very dancefloor-friendly – but it’s basically what would happen to a renewed Kraftwerk if they didn’t have the musicality or imagination.

Must I give it a rating? I give it 3/10.