Gallic beats

(Morning Star, Saturday 19 March 2005)

ALBUM: Daft Punk - Human After All
(Virgin)

WHAT can be said about these two Frenchmen?

They refuse to reveal their faces in publicity and their seemingly slack approach to producing their own original albums - it's been a while, lads - is not entirely indicative of their work output.

Au contraire, their collaborations are many - most famously with those other Gallic musical nymphs Air.

The other thing that they're famous for, of course, is producing dance music the like of which the cherubs have never heard.

Human After All is a treat and a half - the second that the title track kicks in, it's clear that they haven't changed their winning game.

Robot Rock starts with the kind of guitar stabs that you'd expect from Black Sabbath, but that daft digital sound soon kicks in and the song is a prime slice of punk.

The high point of the album is Make Love, a tuneful piano-guided treat with real feeling.

Human After All is like a fabulously cool Euro disco, it's like the soundtrack to a 1980s cartoon - it's like they were never away.