Review Summary: Some "robot rock" that lasts a bit too long
There's not much to say about Human After All. I will say, though, that it's the most "WTF?" moment in Daft Punk's discography (or more specifically, "The Prime Time of Your Life"). It's also extremely repetitive as well as minimalist. Not much changes throughout this album. Daft Punk experimented with this in a minimalist fashion, so don't be shocked when you find out that this was recorded in, spoiler, eight weeks. I don't imagine it was "day-and-night"/nonstop recording, although I imagine they put a lot of work into this. Sadly, effort does not critique albums.
The opener, also title-track, is hands-down the best track on the album. It's also the least-repetitive song on the album, excluding the skit "On/Off". It's only slightly repetitive, but it's makes up for that with a great transition into the climactic and epic outro. Great flow throughout; featuring this industrial rock/electroclash-esque instrumental.
The hype dies down a bit after this, though, because here comes that "WTF?" moment I mentioned, a.k.a. "The Prime Time of Your Life". My advice, skip the music video. I like the song mainly for the beginnings of it, which lead up to its noisy and booming median piece. After the median, the tempo goes up at a steady pace, until there's just rapid and sonic noise blaring into your ears. I am surprised that Daft Punk made this song, or this entire album, even.
"Robot Rock" next. This is where the chain of more repetitive songs begin. It's only 4-and-a-half minutes long, and even then Daft Punk have managed to make it incredibly repetitive. I'm not going to go ahead and use "repetitive" to describe every song on here (because that's what the whole album is), so just keep that adjective in mind whenever I bring up a song. Anyway, the radio edit for "Robot Rock" is obvious better. Shortened, it's a great little dance-rock song.
"Steam Machine" is a rather odd song, especially when you have someone hauntingly and lengthily whispering "steam". "Make Love", though, is more reminiscent of Discovery-era Daft Punk. However, it's quite bland and it's practically a near-five minute loop of the same thing. I guess I could call this my least-favorite track on here.
"The Brainwasher" definitely sounds like a "club" song with what it has going for it. A synthesizer-and-drum combo you can definitely dance to. Following this, fittingly enough, is "On/Off", which features sounds from a television continuously surfing channels. "Television Rules the Nation" then comes, featuring a slower tempo than most other tracks on here. Lengthy, but not a bad song overall.
Two tracks left, and the next song goes in a different direction that all other songs; it's an actual classic house song! "Technologic" is more like Homework-era DP, featuring a French house instrumental with good flow. Almost another "club" song. It also features these hypnotic, leftfield, almost robotic vocals, which I can admit, might get annoying after a while. "Emotion" is not a bad closer for Human After All and what we've went through while listening to this. It features a trippy beat and soft synth waves. It couldn't bother actually closing out the album, as it fades out at the end after looping for a while.
So. Human After All. Daft Punk's experimental venture into electronic rock, following their acclaimed Discovery. Well it's not necessarily that bad, although it's a turn-off for people who get bored easily. Not even those people. I got used to the repetition after a bit, but tracks like "Steam Machine" and "Make Love", especially, almost made me doze off. Daft Punk wanted to try something new. Sadly, what they came up with originally were practically snippets of songs. What they did was they simply stretched them out until it was long enough to be an actual "album". This came four years after Discovery, which seemed annoying at the time. But anyway, to recap, repetition killed what would've been an otherwise great album, as well as something passable for Daft Punk standards.
