Everything Everything - A Fever Dream

After a major resurgence over the past half decade, the British indie scene (to conflate a vast array of genres) has gone relatively quiet once again. With bands like The Wombats and Catfish And The Bottlemen, both of whom saw their wider popularity soar in recent years, currently writing new albums, a void (albeit a fairly small one) has been left. By far and away the most original band paddling in that tide of indieness at the time was Everything Everything. Their 2015 record Get To Heaven broke them into the top ten of the UK Albums Chart and received outstanding levels of critical acclaim. Naturally then, a followup has been eagerly anticipated by fans and critics alike...

The album starts strongly, opening with the forlorn tones of Night Of The Long Knives. The track continues Jonathan Higgs' lyrical tendency towards social and political commentary, named after Hitler's infamous purge against political opponents. It immediately conjures up comparisons between the Nazism of the 1930s and 40s and the ominously growing presence of fascist rhetoric in today's political discourse. This is followed by the insatiably catchy and more upbeat leading single Can't Do, which focuses on the pressures of finding lyrical inspiration, and then third single Desire, a critique of our increasingly selfish and reckless society, personified perhaps by Trump. The cascading synthesizers and twangy basslines in these three tracks represent the perfect sonic transition into the new album.

From that point the record embarks on a significantly edgier course even by the four piece's wild standards. Theses could be written on every song, there is so much to unpack. Whilst Big Game is a more directly overt attack on the tangerine leader of the free world, later songs tackle more philosophical and political issues including xenophobia and the legitimacy of power. Their lyrics remain clear enough throughout that a general message can be understood in most songs but crucially remain abstract enough that listeners can make their own particular interpretations as to the metaphors and wordplay used throughout.
   
The record, particularly in its latter half, feels significantly slower than Get To Heaven. This has been chosen deliberately, perhaps to mirror the darker, more sombre tone created by its lyrical content. Additionally, it's clear to see the group becoming more adventurous with production, adding intricate layers of sound to every song. In places they've certainly overdone it and the tracks grow discordant and grating, however these are certainly in the minority. Love, so often an overarching theme for most artists, only crops up in the final song (White Whale), which captures the delicately melancholic sound of the final five.

Everything Everything are a band who relish in defying musical convention and they have done so once again with A Fever Dream, crafting a truly original and intelligent album. While it may not possess the more catchy commercial charms of Get To Heaven, its astute lyricism and careful construction ensure that it still remains a great album, cementing their position at the helm of British indie music.

                        8/10