Everything Everything

Man Alive

Geffen

Happy to give merely the idea of this band an unreserved thumbs-up, let’s get stuck into the music without further ado.

 

Whatever hunch you may harbour when it comes to polyrhythms, beats and freestyle, high-pitched wailing in the hands of what can only bedescribed as defiant swots, set your prejudice aside! It’s hard to see the passage of time revealing any fault in the new single, snuck in as track three here and an irresistible proposition with its hook umpteen chart-hogging production gurus would freely vivisect their young friends for.

Having said that, my device reminds its user of the many, many more times it’s played “Final Form” and “Come Alive Diana” compared tomore vaunted tracks such as frequent encore “Weights”, “Photo Handsome” and first single “Suffragette Suffragette”, original as they are.

The horn section on “Come Alive Diana” is as genius as it is both abrupt and unexpected, while “Final Form” deftly accomplishes a mission they had no business even attempting for years to come. Only for “Tin (the manhole)” to run it ridiculously close.

Throughout “Man Alive” songs disappear and reappear two minutes later after a bout of triangle, fake harpsichord or African funk. Likewise “Nasa is on Your Side” should never work given its wilful shifts in pace – but it does.

The intermittent harmonies make useful comparisons redundant. Still, EE are more new rave than Frank Zappa, whatever they would like us to think. Lyrically adventurous to say the least, Outkast were the last band to set their stall out with anything like this assured, intelligent and funny musical grasp of their surroundings.

If only everybody everybody stuck their necks out like this.

Alex Griffiths