Human has been given a Metacritic score of 64 based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Leonie Cooper of NME gave the album a positive review stating, "Rory Graham's debut album is at once modern and classic, fusing blues, hip-hop and vintage sounds with a pop attitude". Kitty Empire of The Guardian gave the album a positive review stating, "So it's a good job that Rag'n'Bone Man has the kind of righteous roar that could breathe life into the phone book, because this album spools together a set of reliable tropes with little in the way of topspin." Some reviews were critical; Andy Gill of The Independent gave the album a two-star rating out of five stating, "The sad corollary of the proliferation of polls predicting the coming year's Next Big Thing is that sometimes the thing in question isn't quite up to snuff. Last year, Jack Garratt's debut album failed to fulfill the expectations of winning both the Brits Critics' Choice and the BBC Sound Of 2016 polls; and Rory Graham, aka Rag'n'Bone Man, first and second respectively in this year's polls, may follow in like fashion, despite the initial success of his single "Human". That song leads off his album, and for a few tracks – specifically, the victim's plaint "Innocent Man" and devotional anthem "Skin" – it sounds like the real thing, as Graham's burly blues pipes wrestle raw emotion from songs sketched over skeletal beats and sample grooves. But things go rapidly downhill, soured by the earnest, self-important tone of songs like "Grace" and "Ego"; while "Love You Any Less" is just achingly dull, a slice of blandly sepia soulfulness that stains the songs around it."
Commercial performance
On 13 February 2017, the album was number one on The Official Chart Update, the album sold 70,000 copies and was outselling the top 20 combined. The album entered the UKAlbums Chart on 17 February 2017 at number one. The album sold 117,000 copies across physical, download and streaming, making it the fastest-selling debut album by a male act during the 2010s. The album also reached number one in Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland. In France, it started at number two with 16,738 sales. It reached number one two weeks later. By the end of the year, 239,300 copies had been sold in the country. It was ranked twelve on the year-end album sales chart. Including streaming, the album was ranked eight on the year-end album chart with 310,000 units. As of February 2018, it had sold 250,000 copies.
