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Review Summary: Take me to the distant past, I want to go back The bombs go off. The forthcoming screams of the crowd ring for a brief moment, then pause. Your body floats through air. You see the flames rising up. You can feel your bones screaming out. Your brain boils. Yet you remain static in the air, drifting through limbo. Your limbs flail slowly, swaying with the choppy motion of a lagging video game. In your peripheral vision, you see the surroundings flames; people, and buildings slowly blur, mix, then dissipate into nothingness. Your heart races, your fiber begs to split apart and fade away. You find yourself lost in a fever dream....
Where Get to Heaven represented the lingering anxiety over the world slipping through the cracks, A Fever Dream is a world of its own, built through Jonathan Higgs held breath. Get to Heaven hid behind a convincing mask of spring-toned indie pop compositions; A Fever Dream crawls beneath the earth and molds itself around the sounds of the murky, run-down gallows of an underground nightclub long abandoned. It’s lively and full of energy, yet dragging with a tinge of emptiness - concerned that it doesn’t belong and nothing's OK. Repetitiveness and progression are the foundations with which Everything Everything shape their composition. Each song feels like a new shift in a disjointed narrative, a journey through the eyes of the everyday man going through a vividly narrated, hellish landscape. Yet pulsating synthesizers, bouncy basslines, and infectious pop hooks ground the descriptions and show that the album’s dismal wordplay isn’t just abstract, metaphorical prose - but a reminder that the world has sunk further than anyone could’ve expected in only two years.
One can only do so much to keep themselves distracted from the harsh reality that their surroundings are coming undone. This concept is alluded to on lead single “Can’t Do”, in which Higgs half-heartedly finds himself lost “loving the bass, loving the drums” in verse. Yet he desperately cries for help in the ad-libbed lines of the chorus. With A Fever Dream stripping away the happy sounding melodies of its predecessor, and swapping them with a darker, subtly complex approach to composition, it becomes more apparent how morbid Everything Everything songwriting truly is. Warm guitar tones dunked inside loud, disorienting synths and a thick, cold atmosphere are met with tracks that gradually build off their basic elements, segueing into a chaotic mess of noise before fading out on a single note - the screams of many being silenced. A Fever Dream is a hectic and terrifying record that holds its composure with as much cautious optimism that can be conjured from the pop formula. By filtering out political commentary for an honest portrayal of the individual’s anxiety, Everything Everything makes one thing clear: We, as a collective, are facing a paradigm shift in the way our lives transpire as the world around us turns - and the light only gets darker from here.
…And all you want, more than anything, is to wake up. Welcome to the new age.
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Stream: http://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/a-fever-dream/id1245331144 (Available worldwide at midnight in the tea drinker's land)
Best: Night of the Long Knives, Can’t Do, Desire, Good Shot Good Soldier, A Fever Dream, Ivory Tower
Worst: Run the Numbers
Massive thanks to Blush, Con, Jack, and Sounds for corrections and suggestions in writing this review. On a side note, Steven Wilson can get hecked. This is the “smart” pop album of 2017.
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best comment, phenomenal review; hardest pos.
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Excellent review dude, this album is glorious
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
i'll wait for the official release (won't take long, after all) but based on singles alone don't think i'll like this as much as get to heaven.
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The singles work better in an album context. I thought Can't Do on its own was pretty meh but it molds super well with the record. Not to mention most of the other tracks are amazing in their own right.
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nice man haha I see ya couldnt wait to post this. love that first para still tho
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
i thought can't do was the best out of all the singles lol
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t/t is the best of the singles imo, but the deep cuts are consistently good too
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
i think run the numbers is better than big game
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Run the numbers isn't bad but it's just weak. Found it the most uninteresting instrumentally while big game had cool percussion. Radiohead-esque and what not.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Desire had been embedded in my head for days. This album is spectacular, and the title track is simply jaw dropping
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
at the moment for me it's:
night of the long knives
put me together
good shot good soldier
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desire
can't do
a fever dream
ivory tower
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white whale
new deep
run the numbers
big game
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very clean and well-written, good job man
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
good review, excited to hear this
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Albums out everywhere (in the uk) bois 🎉
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Excellent review Vax, I genuinely think this could be AOTY.
A Fever Dream, Night of the Long Knives, Can't Do, Ivory Tower > Good Shot Good Soldier, Run the Numbers, Put Me Together > Desire, New Deep, White Whale > Big Game (the only track I'm indifferent about)
Wilsion can get fucked [2]
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Also Can't Do gets better with every listen, the bassline is so whack
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Run the Numbers and White Whale are the bottom two of the album. Everything else is a certifiable jam. Also yeah Can't Do has a lot of depth despite essentially being a Distant Past clone.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
I'm glad that White Whale was chosen to close the album - it feels quite uncharacteristic of EE having this plodding tempo and a lack of electronic instrumentation, it feels more like a grandiose Radiohead closer than anything, and if it was in the middle of A Fever Dream it'd stick out like a sore thumb. I still like it though
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
TT is kinda boring, actually... tho still nice enough.
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