by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Five years since the release of their last album, Brooklyn’s Half Human return in trio form, as tense and acerbic as ever. Set to release Intelligent Design on August 4th via Specious Arts (The Psyched, Multiform Palace, Scott Thorough), the record has the claustrophobic feel of a windowless room on an oppressively hot day, the band’s sound contorted and mechanical, executed with sharp angles and a jagged rhythmic pulse. There’s a passing resemblance to bands like FACS, Preoccupations, Liars, and maybe a touch of Black Eyes, those rooted in post-punk that aren’t afraid to embrace their experimental and electronic side. Half Human maneuver freely throughout their second full length, opting to expand song structures and push beyond the framework when least expected. They break from minimalist repetition to swarm in abstract sound, their songs peeled between razor sharp focus and improvisational shifts.
“Hills Leaning Backwards” is the album’s third single, a song that opens in the band’s more elastic dance-punk range, led by the crisp rhythmic pulse of Michael Disanto (drums) and Timothy McKee (bass, vocals). As the beat locks itself firmly into place, John Whitlock’s (guitar, vocals) heavily manipulated guitars swirl around in unpredictable patterns, evasive like a fly running wild in your living room. While so much of Half Human’s music would hint at pulling the listening into a hypnotic state of minimalist tension, McKee and Whitlock’s duel vocal approach constantly shakes free of any confines. For a sound that feels captured in tones of gray, their vocal approach is closer to fluorescents, coloring outside the lines of their greater design to create a unique energy and animated delivery, a beam of light through the thick clouds.