Release Date: January 14, 2013
Grade: A+
Verdict: A brilliant, beautiful mess that pushes the boundaries of what can be described as “pop music.”
As their name might have suggested, Everything Everything is a four-piece Manchesterian outfit that sounds like they couldn’t quite decide which musical influence to pursue. So they decided to pursue all of them. With influences including Nirvana, Radiohead, Coldplay, Destiny’s Child, Mr. Bungle, and R.Kelly, “Arc” sounds like it should just be a mess. But the amazing thing is all those influences somehow blend together to create a unique sounding pop album.
There’s no one track that defines the entire album. The opener “Cough Cough”, pounds out of the gate with an odd juxtaposition of tribal drumming paired with frantic, polyrhythmic synths and R&B tinged vocals. The tongue-in-cheek “Torso of the Week” starts with slow lounge room ambience before launching into a heavy, guitar-layered chorus. “The Peaks” is a slow piano ballad. “Feet for Hands” features an honest to god orchestral arrangement before making the subtle transformation to arena-filling, synth-pop.
But the biggest strength of this album is a tie between Jeremy Pritchard’s steady bass playing, (which holds down all the madness), and Jonathan Higgs’s phenomenal voice. He rockets up his voice form a soulful croon to a desperate howl and back again in this space of a single song and always sounds beautiful even on the less compelling tracks.
At any given time, it can feel like they’re more than five different things happening through the course of a single track, for an almost schizophrenic effect that can be overwhelming. But the lads of Everything Everything manage keep the wheels from falling off the wagon no matter how many instruments are piled on. Oddly enough, the few lowlights of the album only come when the band scales down the cacophony. “Choice Mountain,” “Duet” and “Arc” aren’t bad songs and are helped by standout vocal performances, but without the mad experimentation found on the rest of the album, they sound like tired retreads of indie synth pop.
“Arc” is a compelling mix of varied musical influences that simply wouldn’t work together in less than talented hands. The band just sounds its best when it’s juggling lots of different balls in the air and isn’t hindered to one sound in particular, but never does the experimentation push past the point of being enjoyable music.
