After what seems like an age since we first heard lead
single ‘Cough Cough’, Everything Everything’s second album ‘Arc’ is here for us
to devour, and there is certainly plenty of meat on these bones. After such a
promising debut effort in ‘Man Alive’ there has been so much attention on the
Manchester-based quartet that they could well have buckled under the pressure;
instead, they have held strong and created another brilliant album.
What is perhaps most striking is that this time around, the
cerebral pop that is integral to the Everything Everything sound has a more
human edge to it. There aren’t quite so many metaphors to unpack; the listener
already has some of the touchstones for themselves. This brings a softness that
tempers the more frenetic moments on the record, and nowhere is this marriage
of the smooth and the rough more evident than in ‘Armourland’, the closest the
band get to a love song of sorts. The sharp-edged verses give way to choruses
that yearn and serenade like a warped cabaret crooner. Elsewhere, ‘The House Is
Dust’ shows a preoccupation with the future of mankind, and ‘Feet For Hands’
couples a quasi-flamenco sound with a particularly eloquent monologue of
despair and depression.
As well as these interludes of introspection, there are the
flourishes and sonic spectacles that we have come to expect from Everything
Everything. ‘Torso Of The Week’ works its way up from just voice and drums to
an explosive chorus that cannot fail to get your feet tapping, while ‘Radiant’
is sculpted around a guitar hook so catchy it may never leave your head. To
follow up a Mercury-nominated debut album is undoubtedly a tricky task, but with
‘Arc’ Everything Everything have made it look stupidly easy.
9/10
Everything Everything
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