Human After All

Not as overtly catchy (or cheesy) as Discovery, Human After All nonetheless is a hilariously cold and mechanical work that makes Kraftwerk sound like Curtis Mayfield. [May 2005, p.138]

It doesn't always make for an enjoyable listening experience, on or off the dancefloor.

Feels desultory and numb, verging on autistic. [Apr 2005, p.116]

Whether or not Human After All - which of course, has not a single purely human voice in its midst - is supposed to be some great stroke of pop irony or self-reflexive wink is irrelevant. Boring, empty music that thinks it’s making a point is condescending and pedantic.

With “Human After All” the pair are running both on the spot and out of ideas. In making an album comprised of nothing but their stylistic tics – the over-used Vocoder/pitch bender, the monstrously compressed acid squelches, the crunchy, rock guitar motifs – Daft Punk are like a celebrity chef who serves up nothing but his signature dish. Soon, you’ll stop eating in his restaurant.

It's not a massive progression from their debut, and it appears that as the rest of the world has finally caught up with them, the duo from space appear to be having problems going forward.

Dominated by overly repetitive, lumbering throwaways. [18 Mar 2005, p.68]

The album's most human aspect is its contradictory nature, an ultimate lack of emotion that make the exhilarating Homework and the sentimental Discovery so accessible. [#67, p.90]

Some of it is tough and unforgiving... and some is pure pop plastique. [Apr 2005, p.89]

There's a squelchy warmth at the heart of 'Human After All' that's been well masked since their arrival. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

Inexplicably, predictably, Daft Punk have become the first band to produce a retro post-parody of their own work.

Thematically, it's stale and preachy, but few capture mechanized emotion like Daft Punk. [Apr/May 2005, p.142]

Where the weight of expectation and precedence get to have a say, this feels like not just a failure, but a heartbreaker.

Too much of it is straightforward four-to-the-floor anodynity, and a number of tracks run out of ideas almost immediately, explore touchstones they've caressed more inspiringly before or, worse, do both.

The end result on Human is structurally and technically impressive, though at times aesthetically more curious than intriguing.

The robots were more fun. [Apr 2005, p.118]

Daft Punk may have become the victim of their own animatronic satire.

It’s official: The robots have won.

Where 2001's Discovery coyly gene-spliced cock rock and New York garage, Human merely cuts and pastes. [Apr 2005, p.105]

Portraying the state of pop as a series of predictable formulae long since exhausted by corporate superstructure, Human After All more than lives up to its name, rendering a metaphor for failure on the grandest yet simultaneously most personal of terms.

On the whole, Human sounds guided by instructions as much as inspiration.

Apparently knocked off in just six weeks, Daft Punk's third album sounds like it took six days. Six short days. With long lunches.

Daft Punk have released an album so bland and repetitive that it may actually call into question all their past glory. It doesn't seem fathomable, but alas, the proof is seemingly inscribed in each note.

It has everything you've come to expect from a Daft Punk album--innovation, cracking tunes, a palpable sense of its own absurdity--but this time the whole shebang's cranked up to 11. [Apr 2005, p.99]

The snarky, ironic title only seems to poke fun at what is Daft Punk's most programmed and artificial album to date, and this is just a part of what feels like an all in-joke record. [#9]

It's hard to explain the mindless metal riffing that weighs down this completely disappointing album. [May 2005, p.84]