HENGE - HUMANS HENGE

Extra-terrestrial joymongers HENGE have been delighting audiences on Planet Earth for over a decade, and consolidate their visit to Earth with album number five: ‘HUMANS’.

Where their 2025 album ‘Journey to Voltus B’ took listeners on a voyage to a distant planet, HENGE have chosen to plant this follow-up firmly on planet Earth, with the planet's apex inhabitants as their subject matter. "Human beings are intriguing to us," says HENGE front-creature Zpor. "Your capacity for abstract thought, your creativity, is nothing short of astonishing. Despite your worrisome appetite for unabashed consumption, you still hold so much promise. You are, as the song goes, capable of greatness."

The album channels rave and electro, proggy synths and squelching 303 acid. It features cosmic chords and the sort of bass that would rattle the windows of any spaceship. They explore the inhabitants of Earth as they are on the planet, and also through a collage of human endeavours in space, featuring sounds from the Apollo missions and part of a lecture by Stephen Hawking The album builds to a huge cosmic climax, powered by the sort of psychedelic rock riffs that conjure both the vastness of the universe and the heroism of setting out to explore it.

Taken as a whole, ‘HUMANS’ is HENGE turning their cosmic gaze back on us: a record that is part affectionate study, part gentle warning, and part celebration. Moving from rave-fuelled grooves to tender love songs and prog-tinged psych-rock riffing, it observes the full spectrum of the human story with curiosity, humour and awe.