CD Review: Daft Punk's 'Random Access Memories'

If all you know about Daft Punk is some faraway memory of their 2001 club hit "One More Time" or, even more likely, the duo's production Kanye West sampled on his club-you-in-the-head hit "Stronger," perhaps it is time to reconsider. Daft Punk's fourth studio album "Random Access Memories" still features the French electronic producers Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Cristo as helmet-wearing robots with liberal uses of the vocoder, but this time around Daft Punk as done something it has never done before: expose its heart, beating away somewhere inside the machine. Its homage to vintage disco and warm analog production remains fresh because the expansive, feel-good, insanely danceable music has the best elements of irresistible house-inspired synthpop to keep it modern — but not too modern as to create something sterile. The record is themed around a robot's attempt to become human, and by the end of the album, the robots are truly human in the best sense of the word.

Grade: B+