Of all the possible indie-rock bands to tackle the thematic content of a world gone wrong, British four piece Everything Everything would have to be one of the most well-equipped. Known for their electronic art noise rock, the quartet’s third studio album Get to Heaven centres around the dismal descent of Earth into a technology controlled, personality devoid hysteria, from which there seems to be no real escape. Get to Heaven is a disillusioned examination of modern life.
Everything Everything’s first two offerings, 2010’s Man Alive and 2013’s Arc, built solid foundations for the band’s eclectic musical style. Both albums were bracketed by art rock, with hints of electro-pop and 90s R+B thrown in for good measure. Get to Heaven manages to take this melting pot of stylistic influence to the extreme, with each song more complex than its predecessor. Lead single ‘Distant Past’ utilises disco guitar riffs; ‘Blast Doors’ and ‘Hapsburg Lippp’ are both angry mixes of R+B bass and spacey electronica; ‘We Sleep in Pairs’ shows off some The Bends-era–Radiohead instrumentation underneath a Jeff Buckley-esque vocal line. Everything Everything’s signature sound is still prevalent throughout – fast-picked guitars, ditzy electronics, chugging bass and drums, and Higg’s soaring trademark falsetto. But each song is given the time to come into its own, which helps propel the album’s entire theme. As Higgs himself says, Get to Heaven ‘reads and plays like a horror story’- and it is an extremely cohesive and well-executed horror story, at that.
Review by Bridget Rumball