Dancing On Our Tongues

It would not be far-fetched to say the ones who say that there are no good (new) bands around nowadays, or too few, know nothing about music. They are but oblivious fools who don’t really ‘get out of the house’. Sure, there is no denying big words are thrown easily these days. “Epic”, “immense”, “best new band”, etc. But there is something about Everything Everything that makes it clear hyperboles should be used without fear of exaggeration.

Now, the four Mancunians have been kind to us and prepared the ground with exquisite songs like Suffragette Suffragette, its tingly bass lines following you around all day, stuck in your head, and My Kz Yr Bf, every high-pitched vocal making you jealous you couldn’t sing like Jonathan Higgs or, as a matter of fact, spit out the words with the same velocity.

The debut finally here, more words of praise are to roll off your tongue each time you’ll be playing it. It’s the clear accent that makes it feel all too snobbish and art-school-like. It’s the smile on your face when you hear the white-assed almost perfect R&B grooves, the way Higgs tries to be both a fifth Destiny’s Child and Hayden Thorpe's irreverent brother. It’s all the misheard lines that you can’t get right even after reading the liner notes. It’s the way they build around them, making each song a mystery.

Man Alive is the solid proof this band knows how to combine the influenced they cite in a way it is actually sounds exiting in practise and not only on paper. It turns each syncopate beat, each odd guitar, each exact drum into something that rightfully should top any chart and that belongs next to mainstream acts. It’s clear, after a little more than 50 minutes that Everything Everything know how to turn pop into something fresh and fun not because they don’t top the said charts, but because of all the ideas they throw in one song and wrapping them up in a dense atmosphere.

This record should be called epic and immense, fantastic and a stroke of genius. But Man Alive is, after all, just another reason to believe there must be something in the water in Manchester.