How do you become a human being album concept?

English indie pop quartet Glass Animals’ formal introduction came in the summer of 2014 with the release of their super cerebral debut ZABA. The reflective 11-song set was awash in trippy R&B beats and, to steal a word from the collection’s breakout single, “Gooey” atmospherics.

But for their second LP, rather than gaze inward, primary songcrafter and frontman Dave Bayley looked outward for inspiration. How To Be A Human Being, out Aug. 26, is a gorgeous, complicated, and compelling character study drawn from the band’s last two years of heavy touring. “We’ve been meeting so many people,” Bayley explains. “Doing promo, at the venue, going to after parties after the show, taxis to and from, interviews. You’re meeting, like, 100 people a day and they’re all telling you stories about their lives. Some of them are really heartbreaking, some of them are really disgusting, some of them are really funny.”

The same might be said of the 11 songs on Being. There’s the psychedelic album opener and first single “Life Itself” where listeners meet an oddball who has a hard time fitting in. He’s stuck living with mom and barely scraping by. Also, the girl on “Season 2 Episode 3” who “eats mayonnaise from a jar, when she’s getting blazed,” and the parent on “Youth,” who sings to her child, lamenting their aging. There’s a boyfriend who misses the days when his girlfriend was still fun (“Pork Soda”), a man on the verge of a violent outburst (“Mama’s Gun”), and a broken and formerly Percocet-dependent woman reborn (“Agnes”). Heartbreaking, disgusting, and some really funny, just as Bayley promised.

And while fans might be inclined to find their own story in these tunes, the conversations had between Bayley and random passersby were just the jumping off point for the singer’s imagination. “You know when you see someone in a train station or an airport and they look a bit out of place?” he asks. “I started wondering about who they are and what they do and how they fill their spare time. I started making up characters.”

But humanity doesn’t just seep in through the tales, it was also the guiding force for the variety of sounds Bayley favored on Being. “I tried to be much more analog this record,” he says. “This is more real instruments and recordings. I spent a lot of time tinkering with synthesizers and guitars and whatever was lying around.” Bayley means it when he says whatever. “Even some of the sounds that sound electronic are real,” he adds with a laugh, “like hitting a lamp stand with a piece of metal. You get a weird ‘Boink!'”

He continues, “A lot of them just pop into my head and then I spend a lot time trying to actually make the noises,” he says. “Sometimes you get there and sometimes you totally don’t, but you end up with something interesting as well.”

Although titled as such, the new album from U.K. indie synth-pop group Glass Animals is not an instruction manual. Instead, How To Be A Human Being is a paradigm shift of sorts, re-telling stories and interviews into music through the eyes of the characters – in this case, frontman and producer Dave Bayley. While on tour in support of their 2014 debut ZABA, Bayley recorded countless conversations and stories from strangers:

“I tr[ied] to sneakily record people, and I have hours and hours of these amazing rants from taxi drivers, people we met outside of shows, people at parties. People tell you some amazing things when they don’t think they’re ever gonna see you again”. 

And with these words in hand, Bayley developed characters, devoting hours into these fictional beings for each of the songs. So with 11 tracks in hand, How To Be A Human Being is as diverse and detailed as a group of 11 individuals would be.

Known for the glossy, tranquil mix of electronic and indie rock found on their debut record, Glass Animals have taken it up a notch, incorporating layers of added sonic details against their stealthy hooks. Surprisingly simple, yet catchy melodies act as the skeleton for each song, working the subtleness of their appeal to draw the attention to the soft, silky voice of Bayley and the hypnotizing range of synthetic textures. Without even mentioning the narratives found within the lyrics, the songs possess the fluidity of moving pictures, generating images in the mind’s eye; treks through the desert (“Life Itself”), care-free, star-lit walks (“Youth”), or drug-induced hallucinations (“Take A Slice”) to name a few.

The visually simulating characteristics come from the synergy of sounds and careful production detailing. Melting together quirky electronic drips and tones with cyclic percussion and effect-drenched guitars, hit singles “Life Itself” and “Youth” add a splash of colour to the album with each passing phrase, allowing Bayley’s warm falsetto to glide across the music and ignite the hooks waiting in the chorus. Playfully incorporating elements of hip-hop, and then repurposing them into electro-pop, “Pork Soda”, “The Other Side of Paradise”, and “Cane Shuga” find an oddly shaped, off-centered intensity, with dense bass lines underneath altered vocal and guitar effects.

Although there are 11 different stories built into the track list, and each song finds a way to stand out on its own, the album holds together with a familiar adhesive. Moving from “Life Itself” all the way to the anthemic album-closer “Agnes” may seem like quite a jump, but progressing naturally through the order allows for the album to function as a spectrum, blending subtle differences together before noticing a change. Borrowing elements from 2000s-R&B (“Season 2 Episode 3”), Red Hot Chili Pepper-esque guitar melodies (“Poplar St.”), and a tribal-psych Alt-J styling (“Youth”) make How to Be A Human Being varying, but their ability to effortlessly blend into the Glass Animals niche becomes their core strength, never quite leaving home, but branching out enough to try new things.

How To Be A Human Being is equal parts personality and hits, dabbling into the realm of concept album, but without the oft-accompanying pretentiousness or dizzying complexity. Like a chocolate mousse cake, the album holds deeper layers, both musically and conceptually, below a coating of chocolatey goodness that is the ear-pleasing indie synth-pop. Listeners can delve deeper into the rich layers if they so choose, but will still be left satisfied with the surface.

Listen to the full album via Spotify, and head to their website to order your copy. Catch Glass Animals on tour this fall.

Pass It On:

• Tweet

Related posts:

Tags: 2016, Album, august, August 26, electronic, Glass Animals, How to Be A Human Being, indie, Life Itself, Listen, New Music, pop, review, rock, Season 2 Episode 3, Synth, Youth, Zaba

How do you become a human actor?