Album: Daft Punk

Human After All, VIRGIN

Unlike Moby, Daft Punk have striven in effect to scour their work of any stray tendril of progression or diversity that may accidentally creep in. This is their third album in eight years, and they're still resolutely cranking out the same kinds of Neanderthal beats and belching vocoder riffs that appeared on their 1997 debut, Homework - yet, despite the punishing, repetitive simplicity of their tracks, it's impossible to remember any except the first few, which established their reputation, such as "Around the World". Human After All is no less brutally dumb, thrashing away at the crass, sub-Kraftwerk imagery of titles such as "Robot Rock" and "Technologic", or dabbling in the pseudo-sci-fi machinism of "The Brainwasher" and "Steam Machine", but the formula is creaking badly by now. The lyrics apply the minimalist principles that govern the music, consisting mostly of the track title repeated over and over again, varying only in the manner of expression - hissy for "Steam Machine", robo

Unlike Moby, Daft Punk have striven in effect to scour their work of any stray tendril of progression or diversity that may accidentally creep in. This is their third album in eight years, and they're still resolutely cranking out the same kinds of Neanderthal beats and belching vocoder riffs that appeared on their 1997 debut, Homework - yet, despite the punishing, repetitive simplicity of their tracks, it's impossible to remember any except the first few, which established their reputation, such as "Around the World". Human After All is no less brutally dumb, thrashing away at the crass, sub-Kraftwerk imagery of titles such as "Robot Rock" and "Technologic", or dabbling in the pseudo-sci-fi machinism of "The Brainwasher" and "Steam Machine", but the formula is creaking badly by now. The lyrics apply the minimalist principles that govern the music, consisting mostly of the track title repeated over and over again, varying only in the manner of expression - hissy for "Steam Machine", robotic for "Robot Rock" and so on. There are no frills anywhere on Human After All, with tracks such as "The Brainwasher" appearing to be virtually single-bar loops repeated way beyond the limits of interest and politeness. The album was, Daft Punk claim proudly, created in "just six weeks"; one wonders what they did for the last five of them.