Human After All

by

Daft Punk

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I noticed quite a few reviewers claim this album is too repetitive. Our French androids' last record, "Discovery," was a very fun and poppy collection of songs that made you just want to dance and have a good time. This new record is less danceable perhaps, and it's certainly not something you can sing along to, but this album has a certain beauty that puts you in a completely different state of mind. That has always been the magic of Daft Punk.

The music is harder, darker, and filled with a broader range of emotion than Daft Punk has previously expressed. The opening track, "Human After All," becomes progressively more tense and seems to speak of a desperate search for identity in a cold world where technology is dehumanizing us, and I would call it my favorite Daft Punk song of all time. This theme continues into tracks like "Television Rules The Nation." There are some dancey, active tracks as well, such as "Robot Rock" and the better known "Technologic" that flows like a well-oiled machine. Tracks such as "Steam Machine" and "The Brainwasher" are harsh and busy like faceless cities where people are all plugged into their electronics and completely disconnected from what they were born with inside. Then there are soft songs that surprised me, "Make Love" and "Emotion." These are dream-like melodies that remind one of simple times, simples touches, simple connections, memories that bring us hope on lonely nights while also reminding us that we are imperfect and in need of love.

"Human After All" is not something you can play at a party. It is something you can zone out on, something that can put you in another world. It is something to listen to while you are drawing or writing, while driving alone at night, while staring up at your ceiling in your room and wondering if you're the only person alive. It is a powerful, introverted, emotional work and deserves another listen or two before you throw it back on the shelf.

After another four-year wait, Daft Punk officially return with a relative clunker that was recorded in just 6 weeks from what I understand. The real shame is that there are still some killer riffs to be found here but they are played out with the utmost minimalism lacking any variation or increasing complexity. Songs -- or should I say vignettes? -- that would have been satifying at a neat 3 minutes are dragged out to close to 5 minutes for almost no apparent reason other than to pad this sparse album's playtime. The title track "Human After All" is the clearly shining track on the album, setting the rest of the album up for disappointment. Other singles like "Robot Rock" feature great riffs but quickly wear out their welcome when the 4-minute mark is reached and there's hardly anything to show for it. Daft Punk have always been about a certain degree of minimalism and simplicity in their own cheerfully naive way, but this time they have exposed themselves as plainly insipid.