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Aug 25, 2016The last memory of How To Be A Human Being is pure brilliance, and you're forced to revisit the record every chance you get. Each listen reveals more, scrapes back another layer. You'll get more and feel more each time you hit play.
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Aug 7, 2017Less eccentric and exciting than its predecessor, perhaps, but only by choice. Glass Animals are at their peak in 2016, and perfectly content to be slower and quieter, worming their way into your head by inches but settling in for the long haul once they're in there.
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Sep 9, 2016Nobody else sounds like them right now.
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Sep 21, 2016Although elements remain, the core of humanity and character drive this collection to an equally intriguing effect and leaves a far more immediate impression.
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Sep 2, 2016It sufficiently moves their sound on from Zaba, while also successfully capturing the multifaceted nature of man.
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Aug 25, 2016Perhaps its contemporary qualities will seem as fleeting as its subjects’ visits in five year’s time, but Zaba’s follow up is still an inventively produced, impishly executed triumph.
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Aug 25, 2016Their new record showcases inner madness, characters you’d cross the street to avoid, and some of the band’s smartest pop songs to date.
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Aug 24, 2016It may sound a little high-concept, but its ultimate themes of empathy and diversity are subtly communicated. Glass Animals’ melodies have an immediacy that diffuses any hint of chin-strokiness.
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Aug 24, 2016How to Be a Human Being is arguably yet more effervescent than its predecessor.
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Aug 24, 2016If ZABA was a weird and lovable new friend, How to Be a Human Being exploits that familiarity to test some new boundaries, and the result is delightfully entertaining.
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Sep 1, 2016The tracks flit between genres with little regard for thematic continuity. Still, the album makes up for that absence with a barrage of raw humanity.
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Sep 7, 2016How to Be a Human Being's sense of wonder and joie de vivre feels as instructive to Glass Animals as their listeners, and their willingness to try anything results in some truly great moments.
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MojoSep 6, 2016Bayley's lyrics--inspired by fly-on-the-wall over-hearings--add depth. [Oct 2016, p.109]
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Sep 6, 2016Glass Animals should definitely continue tinkering with their sound; they just haven’t yet earnt the right to full reinvention yet.
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Sep 1, 2016And Agnes, the gloomy, anticlimactic closer, ejects the listener out of the edgy world that much of the album finds strength in by relying too heavily on a mainstream radio sound that feels too safe. Nonetheless, as a whole, HTBAHB is thrilling enough to achieve replay status.
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Q MagazineSep 23, 2016How To Be A Human Being shows a band who know how to Frankenstein a song together, but can't bring it to life. [Nov 2016, p.107]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 117 out of 127
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Mixed: 3 out of 127
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Negative: 7 out of 127
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Aug 26, 2016
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Aug 26, 2016
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Aug 26, 2016