Review Summary: Once Human look in the right direction, but make little attempt at heading towards it.
After a decade-long hiatus from songwriting, Logan Mader (ex-Machine Head, ex-Soulfly) decided to re-emerge in 2014, releasing a debut album entitled
”The Life I Remember” a year later by his new band, Once Human. Firmly rooted in the melodic death metal category, Once Human quickly gained attention from established bands, such as Fear Factory and Gojira, aided further by Mader’s return to the fold. Three years on, Once Human appears more primed than ever to drop their sophomore album, “Evolution”.
Evolution is a necessity in all aspects of life. Within music, it is a way to develop the genre, to attract attention and, most importantly, to remain relevant. With this in mind, it takes a certain diameter and mass of ballsiness for a band to name an album something as direct as “Evolution”. Before any music is even heard, that single phrase provokes instantaneous judgement and naturally increases any pressure that band felt prior to the album’s release to meet this statement of intent.
So, in the three-year gap between albums, how has Once Human evolved? Firstly, the tongue-in-cheek lyricism has been severed from the band’s songs. Evidently, the band have matured and realised that it takes more than shouting “c**t” a few times to make their music sound abrasive. Secondly, Once Human begins to break their comfort zone by layering their typical melodic death metal with other genres. The opener, ‘Flock of Flesh’ starts off with toxic, industrial riffing. However, after a curtain of melodies falls, the song flexes into a bubbly, djent inspired interlude. ‘Gravity’ and ‘Passenger’ also feature these proggy glitches when Mader’s riffs suddenly twist into some contorted rhythm section. This refreshing approach works well in Once Human’s favour while they manage to sound jut as uncompromisingly heavy during these more animated grooves.
On the flipside, Once Human draws a substantial amount of influence from the Gothenburg sound into “Evolution”. While they are good at utilising this style, Once Human sounds so much like a replication of the bands who hail from Gothenburg that there is a plain lack of individuality surrounding
“Evolution”. Whether it be the mechanic drums in ‘Mass Murder Frenzy’, the extended notes and looming grooves during ‘Drain’, or the discordant riff patterns of ‘Eye of Chaos’, most of the songs that
“Evolution” is comprised of trace back to Meshuggah in some obvious way. Lauren Hart’s vocal delivery also lacks crucial uniqueness. Throughout the album, she switches between a clone of Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy) and a female simulation of Jens Kidman (yep, Meshuggah again). The only time she expresses her own individuality is in her clean vocals during ‘Paragon’. Similarly to the instrumentalism, Hart’s voice is powerful and effective but it’s so duplicative of their established peers. When the blatant influences are stripped from Once Human, there is little originality left to display, let alone any type of evolution.
That’s not to say Once Human is taking one step forward and two steps back.
“Evolution” proves that the band are certainly looking in the right direction, but make little attempt at heading towards it. Nor do the songs of
“Evolution” contradict the title. The fresh progressive elements which Once Human unearths evidently signal the beginnings of a new era for the band. Let’s just hope that album number three evolves a little more radically than this one supposedly did.
