Not Many Experts

Everything Everything have only made one blatant mistake on “Man Alive”; it wasn’t released in 2006. Sitting in 2010’s strange stable of musical fads, and without a chill waves or lo-fi in sight, you could be forgiven for seeing them as slightly out of place. But you shouldn’t do. Undoubtedly they’re not the most fashionable of bands. Radio 1 like them far too much. They’re signed to a major label. Their gigs probably contain more than one attractive teenage girl, which, as you will all know, is one too many for the pretentious and discerning muso. But “Man Alive”, for all its staunch refusal to conform to these fashions, is a gloriously conventional record. That they chose to open with “MY KZ UR BF” is as much a clear statement of intent as you’re likely to get from them; “Man Alive” is packed with hooks, and unless you are amongst the most pretentious of music fans then this can hardly be seen as a problem.

Elsewhere they are far more restrained, however, and its this restraint that saves “Man Alive” from the same fate as so many indie rock bands. “Tin (The Manhole)” is the finest piece of music on the album, a starry-eyed paean to, apparently, a fox. We won’t question their motives. Most surprisingly, although the album is more accessible than a scouse woman after half a bottle of vodka, it would be a challenge to pick another single after those that they’ve already released. They’ve got the balance between big pop songs and the more introverted lyric-driven tracks absolutely right, and the album is far more interesting and unselfconscious as a result.

Year of release aside, the only enormous complaint to be made is of portentous album closer “Weights” which sounds just as embarrassingly earnest as it did as the closer to their live set, although the lyric of “I can tell you how this ends” after 5 directionless minutes takes on a satisfying new vein of irony with repeated plays. They’re easily forgiven though, as the rest of “Man Alive”, without managing to be ambitious, is an enormously fun album that the posturing muso in all of us can quietly enjoy in the knowledge that it has just enough depressing songs to not even be a guilty pleasure. Whether or not “Man Alive” will slowly turn Everything Everything into the platinum-selling band that the BBC Sound of 2010 and their record label envisaged, I could not possibly say, but neither would I want to – “Man Alive” has enough quirky twists and turns to keep us interested whilst they slowly work out where they’re going.

Everything Everything – Tin (The Manhole) by NotManyExperts

Everything Everything – MY KZ UR BF

They might be opening for two of the leaders of the new Mancunian wave, but in many ways Egyptian Hip Hop have a completely unenviable position tonight. Not only are they unfathomably late, but they are late to a crowd half made up of middle-aged, jumper-round-the-waist sorts who have heard headliners Delphic being pummelled to death on the radio, and half made up of fidgety kids far too excited about being served the ends of an out of date barrel of Carling to do anything else than jabber at their friends. (This is a rough and unfair estimation. Oh well.) The point is, even given this position, despite their hype, their promising first demos, their support from the achingly cool Hit Club, Egyptian Hip Hop still manage to make everything go downhill as soon as they step on stage. We’d heard they were awful live, but just didn’t believe it. Their lead singer barely gets closer to actually looking at the crowd than peering through a straggly curtain of hair whilst facing his keyboardist, “the other two” look similarly intimidated, whilst their drummer takes things a step too far and genuinely covers his face with a bag. Absolutely, they’re young, and performing isn’t easy, but it’s something that Egyptian Hip Hop surely need to accustom themselves to if they’re going to get anywhere.

Oh yeah, and that’s the other thing; on tonight’s evidence, they aren’t going anywhere. “Rad Pitt” and “Heavy Heaven” still sound fantastic, and always did, but beyond that, there’s nothing that has any impact first time round. Perhaps the other songs just need time to work into your subconscious, but the overall impression is that, so far, we’ve already played to death the best of what Egyptian Hip Hop have written. But that’s not really the message that anyone took away from tonight, because there were moments that forced the realisation that we were watching four immensely talented individuals, clearly capable of writing some great music, if currently a little lost or misguided. Perhaps they’ll improve their live show and start writing songs that actually test their potential, or perhaps they’ll all appear in a few years in bands that better suit their talents; but there’s no denying that there’s still a lot more to come from these four prodigious teenagers.

The contrast with fellow Mancunians Everything Everything could not be more stark. Strutting onto a perfectly lit stage to cheers that make them sound like, well, they’ve actually got fans, they look faintly like their label has dressed them as they strut around flopping their Toni & Guy haircuts everywhere that somehow just make us want to be them even more. A proper lesson in command of the stage, we hope Egyptian Hip Hop were observing and not weeping back-stage. We’re not going to lie; right from opener “Suffragette Suffragette”, it’s clear that Everything Everything have got “the funk”, whatever “the funk” is. And we like it. Not quite in a Stevie Wonder pelvic-thrusting way, but more of a quirky tightness that make Foals’ rhythm section amongst the best around. But we didn’t come to see if Everything Everything looked good or could make people dance – we had already assumed as much.

No, we’re here to see if Everything Everything are going to go the distance and end up on daytime Radio 1, as Geffen will no doubt be wetting themselves in breathless anticipation of. Anyone who was there and not inexplicably interested in talking to their boring friends will tell you that this band are going places. Their depth in quality is really, really impressive for a fairly young band; their new material is just as infectious as past singles that have been iPodded to death. They’ve the quite rare quality of knowing when to slow everything down, and as a result their set does not sound like 6 inferior version of their best single. Only one slight criticism can be made; their set closer just sounds a shade portentous, sort of like self-consciously trying to be epic. And it doesn’t quite work. That aside, though, Everything Everything strode on stage and gave a lot of people very high expectations of them – expectations that are looking more than likely to be realised very soon. Geffen near climax? Quite probably. But then, we can’t complain, because so are we.

Everything Everything – Suffragette Suffragette

Everything Everything – Schoolin (Vision Of Trees Remix)

Egyptian Hip Hop – Rad Pitt

Everything Everything’s “Schoolin’” is released on June 14th by Geffen.

Photo courtesy of Matt Thomas Photography.

Just thought that I should keep you up to date with the developments of our excitement for what Everything Everything are promising to deliver later this year. We’ve already spilled many words over them back here, perhaps presumptuously labelling them as being certain to “chart within months”, but upon the evidence of these extra couple of songs below, we might just be proved right. What makes this consistency yet more impressive is that “Suffragette Suffragette” and “Photoshop Handsome” were actually the two preceding singles to “My Keys Your Boyfriend”; if they continue on this upward trajectory of quality then the debut album (which will be out on Geffen later this year) could be truly worth all of the name checking “Ones To Watch” lists and laboured features such as these.

I mean, we love writing about new bands, but have noticed a worrying tendency for tipped and hyped artists to go on to produce really underwhelming albums, whilst great albums by artists like Bon Iver and The Antlers come out of nowhere to leave us looking like we’ve been completely wasting our time. I can only assume is that this is a side effect of bloggers making tips and picking up on bands based on singles – would it have been easy to recognise The Antler’s beauty in just one scratchy demo? That said, bands like the xx are much welcomed exceptions to this rule (though perhaps the exception that prove the rule) and we can only hope that Everything Everything continue to confound our dubious theory.

Everything Everything – Suffragette Suffragette

Everything Everything – Photoshop Handsome

I really think that you should waste some time on their MySpace ; new song “NASA Is On Your Side” is a product of recent album sessions so should indicate what they’re capable of spinning out over an album. Also, bear in mind that their debut single on Geffen will be out on 7th June, and their label are going to do everything in the power of their wallet to make sure that you and all of your friends hear it. And you probably will have by then; they’re now about to depart on the notorious NME Radar Tour. Notorious, that is, for making superstars out of hopefuls, and nervous wrecks out of people who should have never been there in the first place. Everything (everything) is about to change… Only the one bad pun in an entire post? I’m to have to count that as a complete success.