On August 26, English indie band Glass Animals released their second album, How to be a Human Being. I was a big fan of their debut, ZABA, so I had high hopes, but I was not prepared for just how good this was. How to be a Human Being is a major step up and forward— conceptually, sonically, and lyrically. That’s not to say it diminishes ZABA in any way; it still holds up as a glistening, self-contained gem of a record. But How to be a Human Being is really something special.
Compared to the surreal, jungle-like psychedelia of ZABA, How to be a Human Being is a more sprawling and ambitious record. We still get the novelty and playful percussions that characterized their previous work, but here they’re even more experimental and the tracks are much more varied. There are songs with raucous Pakistani-reminiscent drums (“Life Itself”), retro video game sounds (“Season 2 Episode 3”), old-school hip-hop beats (“Pork Soda” and “The Other Side of Paradise”), and even a flute sample from a Carpenters song (“Mama’s Gun”). Despite the musical diversity, the album manages to feel very coherent. It’s eclectic but not uneven, with an overall sound that’s bigger and bolder yet still fun. It’s a natural progression for the band’s sound and a very satisfying one.
Besides varying greatly from song to song in terms of sound, the album also manages to encompass an entire spectrum of mood and emotion. In interviews, frontman Dave Bayley has described HTBAHB as a sort-of concept album inspired “by people”. Each song tells a story about a different character, with all the characters being visually represented on the “awkward family portrait” album cover art. Many of these characters are quite strange—from the self-styled “Northern Camden’s own Flash Gordon” who can’t get a job or move out of his mom’s basement, to the slacker chick who “eats mayonnaise from a jar while she’s getting blazed”—but this isn’t some cartoon freak show. There is real emotion and for such a colorful album, a surprising amount of darkness. The resulting product is a record that’s weird, funny, sleazy, tragic, joyous, and profoundly empathetic—often all at the same time.
How to be a Human Being is one of those albums wherein every single song is good. There are no filler tracks. The love that went into the project is very evident, both in the outlandishly detailed “mood boards” and the websites Bayley made for the characters. (Yes, Glass Animals made websites for the characters in the album.) I’ve refrained from describing individual tracks too much because this really is something you should experience for yourself, but on an album’s worth of highlights, the last two songs manage to stand out. “Poplar St” is astonishing, and also deeply deceptive—definitely read the lyrics for that one. But “Agnes” is a tour de force. The lyrics are heartbreaking, but the melody is so beautiful you can’t help but feel euphoric despite how incredibly melancholy it makes you feel. It’s a tragedy and it’s triumphant. I would say that I had no idea that they could raise the bar after a song like this, but then again, with a record like How to be a Human Being, Glass Animals have already proven that they can not only surpass expectations but also transcend them.
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