Get To Heaven finds some of Britain’s most off the wall eccentrics on their third mission to conquer the indie universe. It may well be third time lucky. Their previous two albums, e-number packed debut ‘Man Alive’, and the beautifully neglected ‘Arc’ are polar opposites but it finally feels like Everything Everything have found their feet.
With ‘Distant Past’ the Manchester outfit are at their finest with one of their catchiest hooks to date and lyrics like, “Soon I’ll be the best around”, they could stake a claim as producing one of the albums of the year. Amongst the batshit crazy commotion though ‘Get To Heaven’ sometimes feels like it’s been dragged through gritted teeth in ‘Regret’ and ‘Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread’. The careless, experimental, cogs flying everywhere type approach feels a bit forced half a decade on from ‘Man Alive’.
The quartet may just have stepped down on their stubbornness for variety and gone for more recognisable melodies. Bring in escalating synths, and a Bloc Party style thrashing of a riff and now we’re talking in the case of bold opener, ‘To The Blade’, which flickers with the intensity of ‘Suffragette Suffragette’. ‘The Wheel’ on the other hand, is Two Door Cinema sun kissed chords galore before taking a tumble back down to Jonathan Higgs reality with dread-filled lyrics, “Do you wanna know how far you’ve come?” being regurgitated back to himself like he’s watching his own twisted version of ‘This Is Your Life’. No lyrics raise an eyebrow quite as much though as “It’s alright to feel like a fat kid in a push chair, old enough to run, old enough to fire a gun” in the verging on trance ‘No Reptiles’.
Higgs distinguishable falsetto and rapid fire syntax are at the core of the quartet once more. ‘Fortune 500’ is a berserk flood of synths which pumps him with power as he chimes “I’ve won, I’ve won, they’ve told me that I’ve won”. In glitch-ridden ‘Zero Pharaoh’ he’s ready to put a full stop on things with commands of “Give me the gun, give me the gun, give me the gun”.
At other points he’s mad with science, probability and castration in ‘Blast Doors’, “Give me a lobotomy and I can be a tutor, open up the blast doors then we can be neutered”. It’s Everything Everything at their finest, firing nonsense from every orifice at full speed, whilst maintaining the high-pitched wailing poetry from ‘Arc’.
The whole thing is a bitter-sweet nightmare in which Higgs and co are left blurry eyed and dizzy. It makes sense though, and despite all its faults and quirky misplacements, on the third time of asking, Everything Everything have found their utopia.
'Get To Heaven'
Out of 10: 7/10
'Get To Heaven'
Out of 10: 7/10