Style: Djent, metalcore (Instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Vildhjarta, Monuments, Northlane, Periphery
Country: France
Release date: 10 April 2025
In chromatically sparse but rhythmically dense genres like djent, repetition and evolution is the simplest key to success—artists like Meshuggah and VOLA thrive on taking a single idea and letting their imaginations mash and contort its crooked rhythms to their heart’s desire. While it’s undoubtedly possible to tastefully execute a more stream-of-consciousness approach, the end result often comes closer to Aaru than Between the Buried and Me in the wrong hands. So where does that leave French multi-instrumentalist Ares on his seventh full-length record, Human Algorithm…? Will he stay on the tried-and-true path of constant marginal change or eschew the Djent Algorithm for more adventurous pieces?
Well, one track in and the listener can glean all there is to know about Human Algorithm…: moaning lead guitars underlie chunky 01110—10-10 grooves, repeated ad nauseam until Ares has decided the dueling guitars have suffered for long enough. Variations so subtle that they push the definition of ‘variation’ do occur, but the overall soundscape never changes—every track boasts a singular idea, a singular mood, and a singular groove that haphazardly dances around nebulous lead guitar work. To claim that either of these elements take the spotlight would be a misrepresentation: the experience is closer to having your attention drift between the two as you get bored of whatever you happen to be focusing on. Occasionally, the monotony is broken up by spoken-word sections that are either clichéd into oblivion and distastefully used (“Going Mad”) or performed by the dorkiest men you can imagine (“Edicius”).
The guitar leads on Human Algorithm… are by far the more grating of the two key elements. As expected of the name, you’d think they’d play some role in musical progression, but in an ironic twist of fate, very little is actually led by these guitars. For the vast majority of Human Algorithm…, they are conscribed to repeat featureless melodic fills until the guitar’s B and E strings break. Glimpses of melody and catchiness emerge on some of the repeated ideas on “Surpressure”, but the rest of the time, the timbre of the leads is like a shrill whine, conspiring with the dearth of melody to create an unintentional wall of tinnitus. The rhythm guitars are much more palatable than the album’s leads, but to call them ‘good’ would be an overstatement. While never grating, the underlying chugs tend to aimlessly lumber along, adding little more to the compositions than a respite when the lead guitars become too piercing to pay attention to. The voice-overs do little to help the music, either—the topics covered are quite serious, including societal critique and suicide, but it’s hard to meet clips like the one on “Edicius” at their level when they’re delivered by a guy who sounds like an Orson Welles impersonator that teaches accounting at a community college.
In its final hours, an aural hail-mary is delivered: a semblance of compositional variation comes in to yank the listener out of instrumental waterboarding. I am not exaggerating my jarred surprise at “Schizophrenia’s” singular tempo change near its end or the acoustic guitar breakdown of “Human Algorithm”, as by the time they surface, I had completely given up hope for tracks with multiple sections. What’s more, the title track manages to take advantage of the chunky rhythm work, laying down a fun stop-start groove to lead its center section. In absolutely no way do these pieces make up for the mind-numbing deluge that precedes them, but when you’re desperately clawing for variation after thirty minutes of stagnant djenty metalcore, it’s like a breath of fresh air.
Repetition is the bread and butter of djent, but everything should be taken in moderation, even moderation. Human Algorithm… is much too content in its musical ideas, ruminating on them for far longer than is enjoyable or even tolerable in some cases. When Ares does break the mold and tries for more quote-unquote ‘adventurous’ songwriting styles, the result is decent but hardly enough to save a record fraught with dorky voice-overs, featureless grooves, and equally featureless and endlessly grating lead guitars.
Recommended tracks: Human Algorithm, Schizophrenia
You may also like: Aaru, Uneven Structure, Auras, Ever Forthright
Final verdict: 3/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook
Label: Independent
Ares is:
– Ares (everything)
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