Glass Animals release How to Be a Human Being in a genre defying character study of everyday people with intricately placed stories that breathe life into the music. Lush melodies dance around synthpop sensibilities, experimental nuances and psychedelic swaggers. Upon first listen the album comes across lackluster in comparison to their debut Zaba selection, yet this collection is just as engaging and adds existential depth in different touches of humanity.
Opening track “Life Itself” is filled with crazy cool percussive elements, warped out synthesizers, mildly strumming guitars – Glass Animals experimentalism at their best, softened soothing swagger… yet content wise the song is a bit is kind of sad, the struggles of not making it on the fringe underside of society. Vocalist Dave Bayley then voices a mother singing to her child in “Youth,” wishing the carefree desires and expressing the metaphysics of love transcending time and space in an inseparable connection. Sweet cartoon-like synthesized happiness plays out ‘with a cookie as a coaster’ during “Season 2 Episode 3” and it couldn’t be more sweet; even after the relational fact the ‘boy’ thinks about his old girlfriend, utterly lazy but not as backwards as he ends up.
Though some moments of How to Be a Human Being might be interpreted as autobiographical, the stories become so intricately placed that the case study seems to go beyond just Bayley. Muffled metal trash pieces lend percussive elements to “Pork Soda” as pineapples exist in a fun yet utterly brain dead head, while Bayley looks back in retrospect at a relationship in its former state. Samples from The Carpenters provide an eerie backdrop to “Mama’s Gun” that goes on about mental deterioration; as "Mama" ventures further in listening to different voices more the "summer silence" alludes to murder, complete Cheshire grin and all. Then “Cane Shuga” characterizes a closeted cocaine user wanting to stop the habit to get the girl, yet can hardly resist the urge of overriding confidence boosts that come with it; ironically enough the relationship fails much further while the boost keeps on boosting.
Henceforth as if to change pace an interjectory New York street side recording of "premade sandwiches" rambles on like a fast talking commercial lawyer speaking legalese of trends that never die; from the "probiotic" to "superfoods" the ramble critiques every hipster shallow thought of cool materialism. Character study return on “The Other Side of Paradise” in a swarm of synths leading way to a small town basketball player going to the bigger city to become famous, as told by his hometown sweetheart; yet as the song unravels so does the storyteller, telling off the man lost in his delusional rush. Indulgence continues to rule “Take a Slice” more than the oddly placed guitar solo at its tail end, following one sleazy individual eyeing the finer things in a sampling of “that fresh cherry pie.”
If you haven’t noticed the matching character possibilities on the album cover by now then you might want to peek at all those people… before “Poplar St” plays out like an American Dream from boyhood innocence to red flowers scattered upon the bed, fully equipped with toxic "Mrs. Moore" love in teeth sunk deep; despite his feelings it turns out the boy is really just another boy who happens to be living on that street. The final character of the collective is “Agnes” in a sad recollection on what was bound to happen, a relationship deteriorated through increasing substance abuse; the only resolution left to speak of in this case is with the words: “and so it goes.”
Far from the sophomore slump that bands of this caliber are susceptible to, Glass Animals has created all the subtle nuances and textures to How to Be a Human Being that you could ever ask for. Tracks move from one to the next like an old fashion scrapbook of humanity, contextualizing the fun and the profane in intimate details. Call it a concept or whatnot, Glass Animals have showed not just their own fragility but those of many more – accessibly relatable, distinctly human.