The Humans are an experimental band project, featuring Bill Rieflin (R.E.M.), Toyah Willcox and Chris Wong.
With their second album, The Humans have proved themselves to be a ’real’ band and not just another one-album project. And what an achi evement it is! Every aspect that was good about their debut, two years ago, and the spin-off project This Fragile Moment, is here taken to a higher level. Each song is a potential hit single (in some weird underground world). Nothing feels dispensable, not even the reprise of ”Small Town Psychopath”. The two versions of that song are equally good and it is easy to understand why it must have been hard to decide which one that would be the official album track.
The basses rule this album (both Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong are primarily bassists). The higher register guitars, on some tracks played by ’guest Human’ Robert Fripp, are more or less of an ornamental nature, and so are the keyboards. And the use of percussion is reduced to a minimum. While Toyah’s come-back album In the Court of the Crimson Queen (2008) wasn’t that convincing, the things she does with The Humans really are.