Review Summary: Is there something wrong with all of this?
"Man, I know it's a real big shame about your neighborhood," Jonathan Higgs remarks nonchalantly on
A Fever Dream opener 'Night of the Long Knives.' Poignant as ever, Everything Everything taps into the past to forecast the future, focusing on Hitler's 1934 eradication of political opponents. I don't get the feeling anyone will be eager to cry Godwin's Law at this track -- perhaps that's part of the beauty. Indeed, it's an archetype of their writing style; they have always had a knack for hinting at a narrative without falling into the rabbit hole of over-explanation. The hinting here is especially communicative, as it contributes to the already-uneasy and tense composition. "It was a long time coming," Higgs establishes in the pre-chorus, following with a prophetic and explosive chorus: "It's coming." The result: an altogether unique and nuanced means of saying, "hey, maybe history really does repeat itself." And that's just the first track.
I find it utterly impossible to have any reasonable discussion about Everything Everything without returning to their staggeringly succinct lyricism.
A Fever Dream offers this in spades, and all else seems to follow from there. Of course, the lucid, precise production which has become their trademark is still there, but it feels more comfortable than on previous efforts. Their interweaving textural soundscapes still catch the ear, but I get the feeling the intricacies were applied more instinctually than experimentally (a la
Get to Heaven). It seems to me that they've turned their attention to writing more than ever. Hell, the lead single 'Can't Do' was ad-libbed, and the candid chorus only adds to the urgency of the song; it feels like the words were yelled at the onset of a panic attack. Fitting, as the entire record feels like an articulate anthropomorphic panic attack.
Disillusionment has always lingered about in Everything Everything's lyrics, but the emphasis on urgency here is a sign of the times. Good Shot, Good Soldier seems a reconciliation of sorts; after illustrating a number of arbitrary associations -- grown man/good leader; good shot/good soldier -- Higgs cries out, "If I'm wrong, then strike me down with a bolt from the heavens... If I'm right, then light my way... Can you tell me the difference?" This is an interesting take on existential fear, and namely fear of death. The narrator worries over his salvation, and tries to illustrate that he has tried his best, despite the sometimes enigmatic nature of good and evil.
Disillusionment drifts into satirical ignorance in Run the Numbers, which offers a look into the post-factual mind: "I can feel it, I don't care -- I'll never care about your numbers." The message behind this intentional ignorance, postured as it is with an inflammatory delivery, is one of understanding; the preceding lines provide the basis for misunderstanding: "The corridors of power are echoing with something for everyone -- nothing there for you, and there's nothing left for me." Instead of taking an accusatory stance, the song explores how one's material circumstances might affect their ability or willingness to process information. In presenting varied responses to a troubled social climate, Everything Everything provides what feels, more than ever, like a complete picture.
The title track is perhaps the most impactful. Spanning different time signatures, the progression of the song quite rightly feels like the descent into a fever dream. Exploring themes of xenophobia and fear proper, Higgs asks, "How did we get here, and how do we leave?" before ceding to the chilling repetition of the chorus: "Lord, I see a fever dream before me now." After the descent, Ivory Tower picks up from the perspective of elites who have the privilege of being detached from political and social turmoil -- and in fact influence it. However, the narrator here seems to be trapped all the same: "I can think of nothing else but this machine." Simultaneously disdainful of and unremorseful for the situation they've helped create, they can't imagine any feasible alternative to this oft-tumultuous climate.
New Deep seems the most personal track, featuring only the lines, "Is there something wrong with all of this? Or is there something wrong with me?" The unavoidable doubt which accompanies a hard-fought arrival at (some semblance of) a conclusion is more impactful here amid the chaos of the record thus far. The song takes place on a windy night, creating a stark contrast between the claustrophobic maximalism which preceded. A softly crescendoing piano swells in the air as the narrator attempts to take a step back to reassess the bigger picture; it's a necessary breather.
Album closer White Whale takes a similarly minimalistic approach as plucked strings and textured synths underpin the relieved admission: "My mind is on the bad things; your mind is on the good things. These shadows fall on all things; but your love, it is the lightning." The narrator here finds not relief, but displaced fanaticism towards his affection. Telling it is that he chose lightning here, as if to suggest a brief, temporary relief from the shadows. It would have been an easy out to end on a love song, because it's all going to be okay, right? The reality is one much more dismal; the anxieties expressed throughout the record are alleviated, it would seem, by the love of another. However, this love becomes a crutch, and the narrator vehemently and insecurely pursuing that which he needs for survival. "Your love is like a white whale; my finger's on the third rail." To the exclusion of all else, love has become a fanatical, potentially self-destructive pursuit -- Love in the end times.
