First, a little background to better understand where I'm coming from with this review. I consider myself a Daft Punk fan. I've listened to them since before Homework came out. I own all of their US releases (minus singles) including both DVDs. So it was with great anticipation that I waited (4 years) for a new Daft Punk album to come along. Their previous albums have had some disappointing tracks, but enough good ones to keep me interested. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I am very disappointed with Human After All.
Here are the reviews for each individual track. The scores are relative to other Daft Punk songs... so a high score doesn't mean it's the best song I've ever heard or anything.
01. Human After All- This song has fairly fast pace to it. The drums sound how they should. The effects are excellent and keep the song going. The vocals are perfectly balanced (which, as you'll find, is a rarity on this disc). The guitar is also well done. After hearing this song I was excited to hear the rest of the album. It's really a shame that the other songs can't live up to this one. If I ever put this disc in again it will be because of this song.
4/5
02. Prime Time of Your Life- The intro starts out cool. But the catch is that the song doesn't seem to start after that. I kept anticipating where the drums should have kicked in. When they finally did, they sound more like hisses and scratches than drums. After a full two minutes the song changes with some slightly better drums and this cool section where it sustains for a while. The song then suddenly goes haywire and starts speeding up to the point where it sounds like a lawnmower or something... Some neat ideas, they just didn't put them into a listenable song.
2/5
03. Robot Rock- This is the single, according to the album packaging. It's catchy, but still very repetitive. The downside to this track is that it's highly unoriginal. They give credit in the liner notes, so credit is given where it's due. However, if you listen to the original track, "Release the Beast" by Breakwater you will realize that Daft Punk have done very little to make this track their own, other than simply adding the "robot rock" vocal and slight editing here and there. More original elements could have made this a much better song.
3.5/5
04. Steam Machine- The intro for this song had me hoping for something similar to Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. What I got, on the other
hand, was a very boring song. Once again, a cool riff is destroyed by repeating it 10 billion times. The drums are very bland. The vocal line 'Steeeeeeeeeeeeeam......Machiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine' is spoken in a very breathy voice, which I find to be rather annoying. A major disappointment.
1.5/5
05. Make Love- This song is boring and repetitive. The music takes 45 seconds to fully fade in, and by the time it does you've already heard
the entire song. The same loop keeps repeating for the duration of the song, without change. The only exception is the occasional background
vocal that says, of course, 'make love'. Then finally, the extra long fade out. This one will have you reaching for the skip button pretty quickly.
1/5
06. The Brainwasher- As with most of the tracks on this disc, this one is repetitive. The difference is that the weird spatial effects at the
beginning made me want to throw up. Maybe that was the point. This song does have a decent melody to it, but hearing it 8,000 times in a row gets old. The vocal track "I am the brainwasher" sounds silly and the track would be better without it. Not their worst track, but still not good.
2/5
07. On/Off- This is not really a song. It's 17 seconds of what seems to be someone randomly flipping through television channels. This album only has 10 tracks, and is roughly 45 minutes long. Not big enough to have wasted tracks full of garbage. If this track had simply been an intro to the next track, and actually shared the track (not claiming to be a seperate song) then I wouldn't mind. However, they try to pass this off as a seperate song that upsets me. (When you look at the back of the disc before you buy it you get the impression that there are 10 full tracks when in fact there are only 9).
0/5
08. Television Rules The Nation- This is the second best song on the album. The drum pattern is very simple, but it's effective. The vocal line, once again, repeats the title of the song over and over. The guitar is catchy, and the song is put together well. It's one of the exceptions on this album, and if the rest of the album was more like this, that would have been closer to what I expected from them.
3.5/5
09. Technologic- When this track starts you are greeted with a high pitched voice that babbles on about technology (buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, now upgrade it). The vocals are more complex than other tracks on the album, but still not up to par with the vocals on Discovery. Musically, this song is ok. There's nothing really wrong with this song... yet I feel like they could have done better.
2.5/5
10. Emotion- This is a slower song that vaguely reminds me of Discovery. Unfortunately, it does not fit here. It is also a bad note to end the album with. The song is nearly 7 minutes long, and rarely changes the entire time. It starts off with a synth loop. 40 seconds later, the vocal kicks in... repeating the title of the song over and over and over again.Finally, about a minute and 16 seconds into the song the bass kicks in. The bass is predictable and annoying. The drums finally start (over 2 minutes into the song). The drums are very boring, your standard pattern. Now this whole thing repeats over and over and over until the 7 minute mark is reached, with the exception of a few 'changes' here and there where they take out the drums... A horrible way to end the album and does not leave me anticipating a further release from them any time soon.
1/5
I cannot recommend this album to anyone, unless you need an example of sloppy work. Daft Punk fans are likely to be disappointed. New listeners are likely to be disappointed. If you are new to Daft Punk, buy Discovery or Homework. This album would be better as an EP, including Human After All, Television Rules The Nation, Robot Rock, and Technologic. The other songs only detract from the experience.
Album Total 2/5
