Song Review - Her Name

Her Name

by Humans As Animals (available on bandcamp)

 EP: Eukaria (due August 1)

Whoa, this certainly isn’t where I was expecting to end up this weekend. Let me look around, where am I? What is this place? I see a guy over there with a nose piercing and a girl over there with a Japanese inspired tattoo. There’s someone wearing baggy cargo pants with about a thousand pockets and yes, that’s a guy wearing a skirt, a flannel shirt and some Doc Marten boots, in combination. You don’t see that every day in 2014. Now give me a moment to compose myself and listen. There’s a simple beat and a funk track that is oh so familiar I can’t even put my finger on where I’ve heard it before, but it’s comfortable, not at all out of place in this strange place.


An Australian twang, some voices harmonising some “bah bah be-yow” and suddenly I’m right there, in the afternoon sun, in the middle of a field with a thousand or so other people and an unnamed Australian band who are really hot right now on the J’s, playing to an audience more interested in not liking anything the mainstream do, man, regardless of how good or bad that is (insert any festival late-90s here). Luckily for them, four piece Humans As Animals aren’t actually that bad. They may be re-living an era long gone, but it was a good era, so why complain about that? It’s a little bit 90s Faith No More/Red Hot Chili Peppers/Brisbane band Custard, a little bit mid 00s Butterfingers, and a little bit early 00s Foo Fighters (no one in the rock world does poorly dressed man as woman quite as well as Dave Grohl though) and throw in a guy who looks like a reject from 90s Sydney band Tumbleweed and you got the debut single; ‘Her Name’ from Melbourne’s Humans As Animals.


It’s a little bit of stoner rock fun and even though I was lost in the time machine that took me back to the mid 90s for a few minutes there, the mid 90s seemed like a good place to land. I’m not going to complain about being taken there whenever I press play.

Jo Michelmore gives ‘Her Name’ three Kurt Cobain heads out of five…


If you want to hop in the 90s time machine you can join Humans As Animals at their Eukaria EP launch show at The Evelyn in Melbourne on August 14. August 14 2014, that is.