The Daily Spin, May 12
Glass Animals | How To Be A Human Being
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: How To Be A Human Being (2016)
Artist: Glass Animals
Link:
The way that How To Be A Human Being tells so many intertwining stories so cohesively is one of its greatest qualities. It’s a testament to the band’s talent that they’re able to meld lyrics both nonsensical and violently emotional to music ranging from the sleek, liquid beats akin to what featured on their debut album ZABA to peppy tunes more in line with, say, alt-J.
It’s this transitional period, the way that the band flits between all sorts of identity, telling the human experience through lens few of us have ever lived but echoing the moments that we all know so well, that sets this album apart from the rest of their catalogue and from many albums the world over.
Though there’s a sort of lull in the middle of the album, it picks up at the end and starts strong to ensure that there’s little gap in enjoyment regardless - but I want to highlight those last couple of songs - they really decided to Mariano Rivera this shit, and it played perfectly. ‘Poplar St’ is maybe the slowest song on the album, but trades the jellified beats I would have expected previously for a guitar riff that plods along exactly as necessary, building and building before it all flips on its head, devious trickery of sorts that I can’t help but love.
The real star of the album for me is ‘Agnes’, though, the final track. It’s the furthest thing, I would argue, from ZABA’s archetype, eschewing bold, slamming drums for a gently meandering piano/synth beat, something that falls to the background without argument to let frontman Dave Bayley’s voice take center stage. Weaving in a story about the loss of a dear friend, ‘Agnes’ highlights the oft-vicious emotional oscillation that can come with such heartbreak, lines as poignant as any in Bayley’s trademark falsetto ringing deep as every instrument screams along underneath.
You’re gone, but you’re on my mind / I’m lost but I don’t know why
That we could all be so lucky to tell our stories the way Glass Animals have told these eleven. That’d be good enough for me.
Rating: 9.6/10
Best Tracks: Agnes; Poplar St; The Other Side Of Paraside
Worst Tracks: Cane Shuga
>dreamland