Daft Punk - Human AfterAll

Mon 4th Apr, 2005 in Music Reviews

While I would hardly consider myself a connoisseur of dance music, I do know what I like. Dance music, in my opinion, must be exciting and original with a minimal amount of bullshit. Daft Punk have, in the past, filled these categories quite well.

Over the duration of their career, Daft Punk have been well liked by people with musical preferences spanning across all kinds of genres. While it essentially remains dance music, it’s the kind that most people would be willing to turn up and dance around in their loungeroom to.

Their debut record, Homework, was a deadset blinder. Straight-ahead funk/house that was just as easy to digest in your bedroom as it was in a club. Follow up, Discovery, was a slightly more embellished record – complete with glam rock inspired, effect-riddled, synth guitars, vocoders and other weird and wonderful instruments – truly making it a record for the digital age.

So where would Daft Punk go now? Would they continue to push musical and technological boundaries? Or would they stagnate, embrace banality and sell out to whichever car company would have them?

I wish I could honestly answer that question for you, but it just isn’t that easy.

Yes, Human After All has all of Daft Punk’s trademark quirks; dirty synths, shedding guitar, crazy vocoders and poppy eurotrash beats. It’s all pulled off really well, too. But it lacks that kick in the guts that came with their previous two studio releases.

The opening, title track, is the band at their most quirky, with the robotic vocoder processed voice chanting:

It is also just about as catchy as anything I’ve heard all year; unfortunately it all goes on for a bit too long though and becomes stale quicker than expected.

The Prime Time Of Your Life is probably the perfect song to describe the majority of the record. You can hear where they are trying to go, but it takes too long to get there and when you do, it’s not as exciting as it could have been. This is also evident in later tracks like The Brainwasher, Steam Machine and Television Rules the Nation. That’s not to say the songs aren’t enjoyable, just slightly disappointing.

Robot Rock, however, is one of the records true gems. I think the best way to describe would be Alien Police Chase Music. Combine the funk from ‘70’s car chases and the futuristic sound of Daft Punk’s instrumentation and you have one hell of a song to shake your arse to.

Make Love is a pretty song that could be a hell of a lot more powerful if it weren’t so lacking in emotion – which is a real shame. Record closer Emotion unfortunately falls into the same boat.

Technologic is the other highlight of the record, sounding very similar to something you would hear on Discovery. It’s lyrics are comical as is the delivery, but that doesn’t detract from the funky production. This is a song to get people on the floor. The scary thing about it, though, is the fact that the featured mechanical voice could very well end up being a spokesman for the next generation.

Daft Punk have certainly always used simplicity as a driving element in their music, basing most of their pieces on the manipulation of short, simple loops. While this has not changed, there’s something about this process that seems relatively uninspired on Human After All.

Some tracks take up ideas from Discovery and run with them, producing tracks as good as, if not better than those on the said previous record, but these moments are sadly few and far between.

In order to understand how this record can be so good yet still relatively disappointing, one must really be familiar with the sensational standard of the band’s previous two records.

Perhaps the inferiority is due to the fact that the record was made in the space of just six weeks, while Homework and Discovery were granted a far longer time-span. Thus meaning the recording was far less polished and I dare say not as carefully thought out.

Essentially, I’ll still pull out this record in the future, turn it up loud and dance around my lounge room, because that’s what Daft Punk records make you do. Unfortunately this one may get a little dustier than the other two – but then again, time will tell.