There’s neither swag nor swagger here, just talent and a single-minded creative vision worth every gasping breath it takes to keep up with.
Arc shows no sign that Everything Everything will be coming down to Earth any time soon.
Everything Everything have their cake and they’re eating it too – Arc proves that they can keep their zany shade of indie and still be taken very seriously.
‘Arc’ curves around any potential pitfalls by reappointing the core elements of what made ‘Man Alive’ great and framing them in smoother, more subtle songcraft.
This is music for daytime radio that doesn't sacrifice any of its principles. Impossible to pin down but impossible to resist.
'Arc' holds a middle-finger up to the 'difficult second album' myth, showing the band to have mastered control over when to throw everything at the canvas and when to rein it all in to allow the tenderness of their songwriting and Jonathan Higgs' vocal to take centre stage
With Arc, Everything Everything stake their territory with an album that is more straight forward and accessible, but ultimately more gratifying.
The self-conscious straining to be regarded as innovators and iconoclasts that occasionally muddled their debut is absent here; this is a record less bothered about surface than it is about feeling.
It reveals something that was previously swept up in the hurricaine of hype and the hyperactivity, namely that Everything Everything make perhaps the most beautifully uncool and giddy and vital, unironic indie pop the current market possesses.
The flat-out ridiculousness of Man Alive's most exhilarating material is gone, and in its place a mixture of perfectly concise, moving, visceral, often funny pop singles, perhaps one too many mid-paced laments, and a couple of rounds of roiling tirades.
It’s these tracks that make for a far less jittery album, as does the dialling back of Everything Everything’s math-y structural density to make way for uncluttered hooks and big choruses
The sum is not the work of a band intent on playing it safe, but neither is it quite the adventure that their outlook suggests.
Inevitably, Arc lacks coherence; it's the sound of a band working out who they want to be.
It feels churlish to criticise Everything Everything for trying different things, but all too often their efforts feel like lightweight flirtations with a style rather than committed explorations.
I can draw a lot of comparisons to the debut album. Both are well made, fun, and interesting instrumentally. I feel this album is just a little more consistent tho. And like the other album the falsetto can be a bit much sometimes as with some of the harmonies
I've been aware of this record for a very long time, but it was today that I finally decided to take the plunge and listen to all of Everything Everything's sophomore 2013 album "Arc", and surprise surprise, it's one of their most solid and colorful efforts to date
This album comes off the back of their 2010 album "Man Alive", which had some decent instrumentals, vocals and writing on it, as well as a combination of Indie Pop and Art Rock aesthetics that were probably really ... read more
1 | Cough Cough 3:42 | 95 |
2 | Kemosabe 3:43 | 90 |
3 | Torso of the Week 4:33 | 87 |
4 | Duet 3:42 | 86 |
5 | Choice Mountain 3:24 | 86 |
6 | Feet for Hands 3:56 | 80 |
7 | Undrowned 3:00 | 85 |
8 | _Arc_ 1:28 | 74 |
9 | Armourland 3:40 | 83 |
10 | The House Is Dust 3:28 | 78 |
11 | Radiant 3:50 | 86 |
12 | The Peaks 5:26 | 79 |
13 | Don't Try 4:13 | 86 |
#42 | / | musicOMH |