With many albums and EPs being released in 2018, Steve Angello adds his own masterpiece to the catalogue of a year that seems to be one of the most important in the history of EDM.
He did it with his usual class, passion, and hard work.
He did it with “Human”, an excellent album that mixes groovy progressive house with SIZE-style electronic sounds and a lot of orchestral and cinematic elements.
If you were expecting something commercial or radio oriented, you were wrong. Steve decided to break the scheme with an underground approach, making “Human” a fantastic gem for fans, but also an unavoidably underrated album. The selection contains 21 songs, a decision that grants a good hour of music but also makes a review difficult and long. Without forgetting to say, that with so many tracks, we reviewers and most of the fans will surely ignore some of them. What a shame.
This is a perfect example of how an album should be done, without being forced to contain mainstream music or tracks that don’t connect with the artist’s usual style.
Right from the intro, “Rejoice” with T.J. Joice, we immediately understood that “Human” was going to be more introspective than expected. A cinematic intro, with a deep speech and Steve Angello’s perfect base. The sensation of sacred elegance begins to enter the listener’s heart. In a couple of minutes, we understood that we were listening to a work of art with years of experience behind it.
Even if you don’t even listen to EDM, checking “Rejoice” is extremely advised, one of the best speeches in the history of music.
Then, the succession of songs starts to begin. We don’t have the time to focus on each one of them, even though we would have loved to speak about the hypnotic and vibrant bassline of “Flashing Lights”, the rock influences in “Glory” and the rising aggressiveness in “Wanna”. But you know, there are some requisites that we need to respect.
Let’s say that “Human”, in a super-extremely-and-particularly-lazy-approximative way, is divided into three categories, well mixed together and in a random succession. A song in there may be (1) Experimental (like “21:”, “Shifter”, “Lord”), (2) Classic sweet Progressive (“Nothing Scares Me Anymore” or “Are You”) or (3) More underground Progressive/Electro House (“Freedom” overall). The first category is so full of interesting ideas and many tunes that it’s impossible to describe it meticulously. From tribal experimentations to long and deep speeches, Steve Angello put all his effort into inserting creative tracks that serve as support. Considering “Human” as a big and delicious turkey on our musical table, tracks like “21:” or “Lord” break the monotony and create fresh interludes: they are the potatoes, supporting the main element in its primary objective.
Adding those particular tunes and completely deviating from a commercial path is really intelligent as we see it.
Furthermore, Angello’s fans can’t really complain about the rest of the album, about 70%, equally divided in the two categories nominated. Sweet progressive alternates with heavier electro house vibes. Great vocalists (Pusha T and T.J. Joice stole the show from our standpoint), emotional vibes everywhere, excellent quality and continuous surprises. This is a new experience of sounds, clearly created during years of his work.
All we can do is take our hats off and congratulate this legend and his magnificent, underground & belittled album.
Taking everything into account, we consider that “Human” will be, unsurprisingly, the underrated masterpiece of a great year. Steve Angello made a wonderful album, but suitable in the right just for a section of fans. It will be the classic name when people will complain about the mainstream scene: “why nobody is listening to masterpieces like”Human” and people prefer insert famous name?“.
Well, not “nobody”. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that Angello is happy to have created an album with hi heart and special passion, and that’s the most important point, for him. Anything else is a minor detail.
You may agree or disagree with my analysis. But yeah, this is just my two cents on “Human”.
What do you think?
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