Everything Everything - RE-ANIMATOR Review

unmistakably Everything Everything. Truly weird, truly original, truly special.

Everything Everything were easily misunderstood at their outset, with many quick to dismiss their nerdy pop and Higgs’ indecipherable vocals in Man Alive. But doubters were sounded out when banger-laden Arc and Get to Heaven showed the band’s creativity sharpened and Higgs’ lyricism more shrewd. At that time the power of hindsight rendered the first album joyous to revisit with originality and wit aplenty. Fourth record A Fever Dream felt like another step up, turning on the intensity and drama in between the fun, lyrically morphing Higgs into a commentator and analyst of all things topical. RE-ANIMATOR would have to be special to match up to Fever Dream and, arguably, it surpasses it.

RE-ANIMATOR was recorded in London’s RAK studios, produced by Grammy award-winning John Congleton. It finds them at their most direct and confident to date, leaving the bangers behind for more variety and intricacy than before. The album is heavily inspired by psychologist Julian Jaynes’ theory of bicameralism, of the brain split into the speaker and listener. It’s jammed full of references to the duality of the self, hearing voices, and questions of consciousness, which in Higgs’ own words “can be applied to the songs about love, sex, life, death and humanity - I’ve always written about” The record is best considered in three sections: opening, middle, and ending. 

Let’s start with the middle section, which opens with the album's third single ‘Planets’ featuring some of the best humour on the album, from Higgs’ petty threats to bigoted keyboard warriors (“some of you are permanently off my Christmas List”) to comments on the normality of our instinctive animalistic hatred and desires with “God knows I could use a drink of virgin blood to quench my thirst.” Musically, the Stranger Things prog-pop synth lines close in around us as Higgs unsettles and disjoints us while battling with the universe for our affection. 

Second single ‘Arch Enemy’ acts as a jittery ode to an unlikely deity, a Fatberg. The Fatberg holds holy and royal titles “Sphinx of Grease” and “Sewage Moon” until, in the chorus, the sentient Fatberg becomes Higgs’ enemy. A search for a god resulted only in being lured into the power, greed and wealth of the corrupting Fatberg, simultaneously God and enemy as the narrator cannot give up his newfound power. Anger proceeds with a frantic riff of static and a final shout of desperation for some humanity: “it’s time to show your face”.  

‘Moonlight’ is more introspective, with the narrator stuck by a lack of progress. Easily missed on a first play-through, will stand out as emotive and delicate on a revisit. ‘Lord of The Trapdoor’ goes a little further against the Internet trolls referenced in ‘Planets’ and the subject of Fever Dream’s ‘Ivory Tower’. ‘Trapdoor’ builds slow and mellow, before the second section with its huge instrumental breakdown, rapid crashes, and glitchy guitar all under ripples of blubbers and screeches of anguish. 

‘Trapdoor’ evokes Radiohead’s soundscape layers to great effect. The album’s opening section features two even better examples of such Radioheadism. Opener ‘Lost Powers’ is an uncharacteristically slow build of an album opener, a ballad of paranoia and comfort in the absurd. You could be forgiven for assuming Jon Higgs and Alex Robertshaw here are Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. This is even more true of  ‘It Was A Monstering’  which sounds more like Hail to the Thief than Hail to the Thief did. The track tells a tale, of British myth “Purple Aki” and of international urban fear “Slenderman”; the tale is more of self-loathing, regret, loneliness. Higgs is merely using classic beasts and myths to monster himself. The horror film strings and quickening drumbeats give way to a gloomy rock track. The monster theme is also present in ‘Black Hyena’ a sinister tale of madness, morbidity and reanimation invoking zombies and Frankenstein’s monster. The narrator here is neither parent nor creator; rather a re-animator, facilitating a creature self-aware of its existence as a reanimated corpse. As in ‘Arch Enemy’, perhaps we are our own monsters, each confined to a miserable existence of our own making. 

Faster, poppier, belter ‘Big Climb’ shows off Higgs’ dramatic vocal range, switching from highs to lows spitting lyrics sung at rap pace, critiquing Earth-breaking human choices and technological advances. In the striking nihilistic refrain of “not afraid that it’ll kill us yeah, we are afraid that it won’t” the narrator clearly displays fear of living through the continued environmental destruction of society. Humans have climbed so far, turning up the heat to boiling point with only a big fall ahead — a fate possibly worse than death. 

The exceptional backend feels less hopeless at least but this isn’t necessarily evident in ‘The Actor’ which begins as a simple rock-pop tune with the thumping rhythm of Talking Heads and a glittery riff twanging atop. The track fears the idea of a doppelgänger taking over, featuring a swimmy, trippy, agonised vocal that evokes overwhelmed feelings and those of suicidal ideation. However, it could bring comfort to people particularly vulnerable to feeling this way, especially for sounds in the closing minute that evoke Crash Bandicoot chasing wumpa fruit and purple crystals more than any other soundbite. 

First single ‘In Birdsong’ and album closer ‘Violent Sun’ are probably the best tracks on the record, as well as the two furthest apart stylistically. ‘Birdsong’ crackles and flickers to the effect of popping bubble wrap, as Higgs tries to empathise with the first human consciousness. “Birdsong, sung in reverse” is the idea of “a moment where the world stops and something changes” and “I’m vapour in your love” describes a love so intense it disperses us entirely. As Higgs’ search for meaning becomes more desperate, more manic, distortion builds to decidedly frantic levels (with him having asked Congleton explicitly “to make it sound like we’ve fucked it up”). It fades out delicately. It’s fearful, it’s sad, but also beautiful and hopeful, as are all animals, including us. ‘Violent Sun’ is a more straightforwardly charging, New Order-invoking anthem, a love song in the vein of a carpe diem celebration — the album’s last dance. The narrator has heard voices throughout the course of the album, convincing himself he’s defective because of these. But in another person, he has found an opportunity for escape and comfort in the chaos of existence.

RE-ANIMATOR deals with existential fears, death, and chaos of humanity. There’s an aim to confuse and unsettle as much as there is to celebrate and comfort. It is undoubtedly their best work, surpassing the drama and intensity of A Fever Dream with a critical humanism and rapturing hope, as well as sharp witticism and explorations of darkness. There are notable influences from the likes of Talking Heads, New Order, and very heavily from Radiohead; each of these brings their own welcome additions. Ideas explored of hearing voices, monstering and doppelgängers, all culminate in something unmistakably Everything Everything. Truly weird, truly original, truly special. An immersive, inclusive record.