Humans Etcetera is an experimental rock outfit founded by West Virginia native, Christopher Henry, also a member of Fuck Your Birthday, and formerly of Clean Dirty Clean. ‘Intelligent Skeleton’ was written, produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered in Wenzhou, China by Christopher Henry, who performs all vocals, drums, guitars, bass, synth, sampling, and sequencing. It also features tambourine by Cai Qing on “Vice” as well as piano by Huang Yalun and guzheng from Zhang Guogao on the song “Gravebody.” It brings together the angst of bands such as Talking Heads with the angular punk attitude of early XTC, along with ‘90s alternative rock and post-hardcore and modern experimental rock elements.
I found it a hard album to listen to, because I could understand the concepts behind it, and what Christopher was trying to achieve, but also felt that it didn’t quite get there. At times, it felt that it was “out there” just for being that, as opposed to being taken on a journey as that was where the music decided to go and the artist was just bringing that to life. There will be a few who will feel this is the work of a genius while others will have a quite different view. I do think this is clever, and that the failing is more on my part than that of the artist, but this isn’t something to which I will be returning.
