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  • Release Date:
Human Animal Image
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
6.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 15 Ratings

  • Summary: The noisy, intense Michigan band returns with a follow-up to 2004's 'Burned Mind.'
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 18
  2. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. Human Animal comes off as a less directly brutal assault than its predecessor. It sounds a hell of a lot better cranked to ten, though, its contours more explicit, the sounds sharpened to a steely point.
  2. Urb
    90
    At the same time you contort, squirm and surge toward the non-music, your spirit somehow gets the message. [Oct 2006, p.132]
  3. When these scientists hit on the right formula of slow-burning anticipation, the bombast that follows has the profundity of a drug-induced epiphany. Previous Wolf Eyes records have struck that magic balance during individual songs or sides, but none have stretched it over an album's length like Human Animal.
  4. Uncut
    80
    A near-perfect balance of industrial threat, hardcore power and black comedy. [Oct 2006, p.134]
  5. Filter
    74
    The word "unnerving" doesn't account for the range of senses that get pulled down into this abyss. [#22, p.98]
  6. An album at once tighter and more terrifying than anything they’ve yet released.
  7. Magnet
    40
    Uneven. [#73, p.112]

See all 18 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 4 out of 11
  1. PaulH.
    Sep 28, 2006
    10
    It's Wolf Eyes. Need I say more? Definitely not for everyone, but if you're as jaded as I am, it's incredibly comforting to It's Wolf Eyes. Need I say more? Definitely not for everyone, but if you're as jaded as I am, it's incredibly comforting to see Sub Pop put out something that actually has the daring and balls that they (and indie-rock in general) once possessed so many years ago. Definitely much more interesting and compelling than your run-of-the-mill guitar band. Expand
  2. !
    Dec 17, 2006
    10
    one of the best noise albums recently if you don't like this try with madonna, or artic monkeys, or village people....
  3. RussellK
    Dec 27, 2006
    10
    People need to just take this for what it is, NOISE.
  4. PollyB
    Sep 28, 2006
    8
    Wow, the critical reception surprises me considering their last album wasn't quite so enjoyed. Good album.
  5. Sommy
    Dec 21, 2006
    7
    Human Animal plays very similarly to a number of Wolf Eyes' moodier releases on Bulb, particularly Dread and Slicer. Despite the Human Animal plays very similarly to a number of Wolf Eyes' moodier releases on Bulb, particularly Dread and Slicer. Despite the instability of the current lineup, the tightness of their compositions (with respect to dynamics, as there is no apparent thematic melody driving the pieces, obviously) has become staggering, particularly on the opening track (which bears some vague resemblence to "Desert of Glue, Wretched Hog" from Dread). Anyone who buys a Wolf Eyes album knows what he/she is getting into, so there is really no sense to take stock in the criticisms of naysayers who have no real appreciation of this group's ability to transcend a number of "noise" styles with fluidity. To appreciate this band is to piss on hundreds of years of normative musical precedent for the sake of establishing their own rules -- just the way I like it. Highly recommended. Expand
  6. AF
    Nov 23, 2006
    3
    Hmmf. File this one beside the last Scott Walker record in your collection. (In the dusty corner, with the other albums you got sucked into Hmmf. File this one beside the last Scott Walker record in your collection. (In the dusty corner, with the other albums you got sucked into getting, as a result of the misguided practice of taking the advice of jaded rock critics looking for anything different.) Collapse
  7. Ulf
    Oct 1, 2006
    0
    Garbage

See all 11 User Reviews