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NBHAP Rating: 4,5/5
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[one_half last=”yes”]EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
Get To Heaven
Release-Date: 22.06.2015
Label: RCA/ Sony Music
Tracklist:
01. To The Blade
02. Distant Past
03. Get To Heaven
04. Regret
05. Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread
06. The Wheel (Is Turning Now)
07. Fortune 500
08. Blast Doors
09. Zero Pharoah
10. No Reptiles
11. Warm Healer
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING claimed that they were surprised when their second album, Arc, scored them a top ten placing in the UK charts, but really they shouldn’t have been. Ever since they first landed in 2010 with their first album, Man Alive, the band have always shown that they find it easy to craft impeccably catchy tunes. What did make their commercial success a little unusual was how unique their sound was; far too fast-moving to stick to just one musical style, EVERYTHING EVERYTHING sounded like the end result of tossing R’n’B, math-rock, funk, electro and about twenty other genres into a blender. The challenge for them is to retain their musical identity as they progress, which brings us to album three: Get To Heaven.
The band has always had a blizzard approach to lyrics, with singer Jonathan Higgs notable for his ability to cram syllables into tiny spaces and make choruses from odd little lyrical adventures and references (their first big hit MY KZ, UR BF included the line ‘and half the street was under my nails, it’s like we sitting in the Faraday cage’). This is not the stuff that indie lyrics are typically made of, and that kaleidoscope approach marked them out. But there’s been a noticeable shift on Get To Heaven.
Photo by Tom Johnson
When EVERYTHING EVERYTHING first broke through, Higgs’ focus was on the small-scale and everyday; so we had song titles like MY KZ, YR BF, Photoshop Handsome and Qwerty Finger. On Get To Heaven his mind has moved on to heavier things. In interviews Higgs has said that since Arc he immersed himself in the gloomiest corners of the news cycle, with the emergence of ISIS a particular morbid obsession. His lyrics here are therefore much bleaker, such as Fortune 500’s ‘I know the ways that I have been a slave’, Regret’s ‘They’ll see me on the news and never again’ and No Reptiles’ ‘It’s alright to feel like a fat child in a pushchair’, which is an impressively original take of the sense of powerlessness in modern life.
As important as these topics are, by covering them there’s always a risk of submerging an album in misery. It’s therefore lucky that EVERYTHING EVERYTHING are such a wildly alive prospect musically. The band write smart songs, but they also write extremely melodic and catchy ones. There are several tracks here that, despite their gloomy themes, could easily gain repeated play on commercial radio. To The Blade borrows some late-STROKES guitar riffs and combines them with a monster, jerking chorus. Comeback single Distant Past has bouncing rhythm and a chorus full of shimmer and groove. Blast Doors barrels along with frantic intensity, making good use of Higgs’ acrobatic falsetto. Basically, EVERYTHING EVERYTHING have successfully managed to cover heavy themes without losing their sense of energy and fun and collapsing into morbidity. Get To Heaven is an intelligent, important exploration of what the actual fuck is going on in the world today, that you can also slip on the stereo at a party without clearing the room. A smart, powerful record that shows off an impressive musical dexterity and prowess. Existential crisis never sounded so good.
Get To Heaven’s subject matter may have been drawn from singer Jonathan Higgs’ obsession with the darker side of life, but the band’s deft musical touch enables them to make that part of the record rather than letting it overwhelm it. Lyrical intelligence and musical talent combine to make Get To Heaven EVERYTHING EVERTYTHING’s best record yet.
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