Many bands have attempted and failed to create a successful third album. A few bands have attempted and succeeded in creating a brilliant third album, better than their debut and follow up. Everything Everything is one of these bands. Many would fear that the band could top their second album, Arc, which charted at number 5 in UK album charts when it came out in 2013 yet Get To Heaven goes above and beyond the older works of the band.
From start to finish Get To Heaven is infested with quirky beats, creative lyrics and an all round brilliant track listing. The album opens with ‘To The Blade’, a dark lyrical tune with a lengthy instrumental solo which puts into perspective the brilliance of Everything Everything, and gives new listeners of the band a taste of the bands instrumental efforts within their songs. To Everything Everything it is not just a song, its a modern piece of musical art.
After the success of ‘Distant Past’, the first single from the album, it became apparent that Everything Everything were pushing themselves into a new genre of music, a period of “experimentation”, if you like. The techno/house infused track gives off a Jamie XX vibe, something which can’t be said of Everything Everything’s older work. The techno feel is recurrent throughout Get To Heaven, most evidently in the title track. The band almost push the boundaries for fans, as listening to these tracks without knowing who the band are, you would think that the band are the sort you would hear on Capital FM, headlining Wireless Festival not those who are played on the likes of XFM and Radio 6 and are set to play the second largest stage at Reading and Leeds Festival 2015.
If you were a fan of the early works from Everything Everything, the two year gap would almost make you forget the pure, effortless and fascinating vocals of lead singer Jonathan Higgs. His vocal range going from deep and dark to unimaginably high pitched is really put into perspective during ‘Regrets’. The second single from the album shows how Higgs creates this arty/quirky atmosphere with their music, hence why the band fall under the art rock genre. His ranging vocals give the band an edge, showing how different they are compared to bands who are putting out albums today.
Having said that the album shows the band pushing themselves into different genres of music from art-rock: ‘Sun, Spring, Winter, Dread’ has a similar backing sound to ‘Kemosabe’ from the bands infamous Arc album. They keep their original trademark sounds of a perfected bass being played in every song. The album keeps this upbeat sound throughout every track, having them all mixed with a few beats and in some parts deep house sounds. The strongest track comes towards the end on the album. ‘The Wheel Is Turning Now’ is immersed with all elements that Everything Everything have ever covered. Ranging from the slow paced stereotypical indie sound towards the beginning of the song, to the dark deep house twist four minutes into this masterpiece, it is simply one track you could not skip on the album.
‘Blast Doors’ begins with Higgs almost beat boxing his way through the opening few seconds of the song, just going overboard on the mixture of music styles the band have to offer before the final track. The album begins with a upbeat tune and ends with ‘Warm Heeler’; this is a track that begins slow and features soft vocals as Higgs sings “they call me the medicine man”. The song ends with a hardcore bass. The track shows the hard effort the band have put in to compile the 11 track listed album.
Get To Heaven goes above and beyond the two albums Everything Everything have given us over the years and goes to show why the band are the fundamental leaders of modern day Art Rock music.
Words by Brigid Harrison-Draper