Everything Everything are a band with a lot of talent. They’re also a band who could always write terrific off-kilter pop if they weren’t so busy juggling a multitude of ideas at once.
Their debut ‘Man Alive’ was undeniably obtuse and its follow-up was _Arc_ was extremely introverted and a bit of a slog. It was a strong ‘difficult second record’ loaded with despair stretched across 13 mostly slow numbers. It made for a very specific tour the band said, that lacked excitement.
Fast forward two years, Jonathan Higgs and co have completely f*cked off the philosophy of the ballad. Well, not that ‘Everything Everything’ could ever write something as conventional as a ballad any, but they’ve inarguably stepped it up a gear.
‘Get To Heaven’ is all go, there is no filler or down time for its 45 minute run time. Blast Doors is the best song they’ve ever written which boasts almost two choruses with the latter finding one of the most infectious melodies of 2015 that is, dare it be said: completely anthemic.
The formula for the songs isn’t new, the falsetto of Higgs coupled with the occasional backing chanting by Jeremy Prichard, Michael Spearman and Alex Robertshaw. The bubbling beats and the fired 80s-synths never miss the mark throughout this record either, Regret thumps like a box full of 30 + rabbits helplessly trying to escape.
Lyrically, they are as creative as they’ve ever been but thankfully they’re much more accessible here, ‘Baby it’s alright to feel like a fat child in a push chair, old enough to run’ is a stand-out comedic moment on No Reptiles. When asked about how they’d approached this album differently, the band replied they’d been listening to a lot of One Direction.
And while that’s not startlingly apparent on first listen of Get To Heaven, it’s surely gone some way for helping a band that have always had all the ingredients to make a good pop album, make a terrific pop album.