EVERYTHING EVERYTHING + DIVORCE – DE LA WARR PAVILION, BEXHILL-ON- SEA 31.3.24
Everything Everything have been a close favourite band of mine for most of my teenage years up to now; the group’s unique infusion of rhythmic indie rock propulsions and conscious songwriting concepts have fuelled a steady cult following for the best part of 15 years. The group originally formed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jonathan Higgs, drummer Michael Spearman and guitarist Alex Niven in Greater Manchester in 2007, all of whom met at Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School. The trio, alongside bassist Jeremy Pritchard, took the name from the opening track to Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ album, ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ and formed Everything Everything in an attempt described by Higgs to blend contemporary R&B and pop, and expand the sound towards futuristic and hyper-political territories.
Alex Niven eventually departed the group to become a writer and lecturer, leading to current guitarist Alex Robertshaw to fill the gap towards the recording and release of debut album ‘Man Alive’ in 2010, a record that remains to be the group’s quirkiest effort with Higgs’ yelping falsetto leading the band’s identifiable sound. The band were propelled to further praise with 2015’s ‘Get To Heaven’ (my personal favourite) and 2022’s ‘Raw Data Feel’. Now, stretching towards their seventh studio release with ‘Mountainhead’ dropping in February, Everything Everything have maintained a distinctive discography and voice that currently tackles themes of social identity, technology and the decline of civilization.
I find myself perched at the front row of the upper balcony at Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion for my second Everything Everything show, having previously seen them two years prior at the Brighton Dome, patiently awaiting a familiar support act…! In the middle of February, I managed to catch The Vaccines, who played a stellar show at the Dome, backed by the wonderful Nottingham-based support act Divorce! These guys are a four-piece who have been floating around the indie sphere for a couple years now with EPs such as their 2022 ‘Get Mean’ or 2023’s ‘Heady Metal’, infusing alternative country and shoegaze with romantic and lovelorn lyricism. After blissfully taking in the sounds of some of my favourite artists through the Pavilion speakers from XTC and Arthur Russell to Nick Drake and The Durutti Column, Divorce follow their pathway onto the stage and greet us with welcoming arms.
They open with the song ‘Sex & The Millennium Bridge’, a track that has a distinctive heartland rock flair, almost like if Phoebe Bridgers fronted The War on Drugs. An indie waltz to open, this track is sombre, yet heartwarming with a jamboree of analog synth drones and fragile vocals from co-vocalist Tiger Cohen-Towell. ‘Birds’ sees the lead taken by Felix Mackenzie-Barrow, whose sweet “all I see is birds” phrases captivate the crowd atop Kasper Sandstrøm’s tom-based groove. The song ‘Right On Time’ is a jerkier moment in the set with a disjointed momentum that works really nicely. Felix, along with guitarist Adam Peter Smith engage in matching guitar lines in the song’s bridge that mutates into a noisy passage for its climax.
We come to the track ‘Services’ which followed a quip by Tiger on the lack of the titular stations on the way to Bexhill. This track features strong vocal tenacity from the aforementioned singer with screeching guitars and an overarching glam vibe taking hold of the song. ‘Gears’ works with some prickly guitar lines and matching vocal passages from Tiger and Felix, while Kasper’s grooves change at every section, almost drastically! Tiger announces the song ‘Scratch Your Metal’ as a track written to dance to, with some skipping hi-hats drifting across a steady motorik beat in a propulsive fashion.
Following a thank you nod to the hosts for the evening, Everything Everything, the set drifts into the bittersweet and homely ‘Lord’, complete with slide guitar and sparing usage of Adam’s analog synth. Dynamically, the band gets stronger and more progressive as they go along, something that has marked a fantastic improvement the last time I caught them! ‘That Hill’ is as rustic as all hell, with Adam, Tiger and Felix engaging in some wonderfully matching harmonies that paint a nostalgic scenery. The stream-of-consciousness delivery of ‘Eat My Words’ is cathartic and heartfelt, blending slowcore with alternative country sounds that are the acme of Divorce’s sound palate. The quartet suitably check out on the closing ‘Checking Out’, which carries a terribly gut-wrenching weight in the form of heartland guitars and bass-less soundscapes.
Divorce:
Tiger Cohen-Towell – vocals, bass guitar
Felix Mackenzie-Barrow – vocals, guitar
Adam Peter Smith – guitar, synth, backing vocals
Kasper Sandstrøm – drums, backing vocals
Divorce setlist:
‘Sex & The Millennium Bridge’ (from 2023 ‘Heady Metal’ EP)
‘Birds’ (from 2023 ‘Heady Metal’ EP)
‘Right On Time’ (from 2023 ‘Heady Metal’ EP)
‘Services’ (from 2023 ‘Get Mean’ EP)
‘Gears’ ( a 2024 single)
‘Scratch Your Metal’ (from 2023 ‘Heady Metal’ EP)
‘Lord’ (unreleased)
‘That Hill’ (from 2023 ‘Get Mean’ EP)
‘Eat My Words’ (from 2023 ‘Heady Metal’ EP)
‘Checking Out’ (from 2023 ‘Get Mean’ EP)
Already, one half of Sunday night’s musical entourage has impressed me with a drastic improvement in performance and overall quality, but the big question is, will Everything Everything reach higher strengths than my previous encounter with them at the Brighton Dome? Well, the band’s ‘Mountainhead’ logo shines across the back wall as the band walk onto the stage with organ-based ambience flooding the room. The opening ‘The Mad Stone’ kicks straight into polyrhythmic pipe-tone rhythms and gorgeous pop harmonies with a ritualistic chorus. Any Everything Everything fan will know that the band are regarded for the rapid-fire vocal delivery and distinctive falsetto of frontman Jonathan Higgs, which comes into immediate fruition on the post-chorus surrounding repeated expansions of a man standing on the top of a mountain looking at a picture of a man on a screen.
The ‘Mountainhead’ album that the band are touring has been regarded as a cosmically low-key high point in the band’s career, with its opener, ‘Wild Guess’ following suit in the setlist. This track plays around with Alex Robertshaw’s distorted and contorted guitar solo that opens the song asserting dominance. The song’s blissful melody against the classic Everything Everything driving force groove stands as an iconic moment in their performance.
By the time we reach ‘The End Of The Contender’, the third song in the set, the audience are in full sing-along mode, championing its abstract, yet clever lyricism that links perfectly from ‘Mountainhead’ to its 2021 sister album ‘Raw Data Feel’. It’s great to see here how Everything Everything have matured their electronics suitably entering their seventh studio album. ‘Pizza Boy’ has a slightly funkier edge with glistening synths and completely off-the-wall lyrics of “I’ll have a Coke / I’ll have a Pepsi now”, paralleled against the dystopia-tinged “Is it fun on your own? Just you and your mobile phone?”.
I’m taken back to my nostalgic bubble with 2013’s ‘Kemosabe’, possibly my earliest memory of the band and an anthem from my secondary school days. This song, with its chirping synths, faultless key changes and fast lyrical sermon still remains a classic to this day, executed with no effort here at the Pavilion. ‘R U Happy?’ pares things back a little with ‘Idioteque’-style drum beats and shimmering organ synths with the ‘Mountainhead’ logo shining high above the band. While this track was not a high favourite off the new album for me, hearing it in this context has really made it grow on me, as have several other tracks from it in this set! Following this statement, ‘Raw Data Feel’ opener ‘Teletype’ is pulled off with more strength since my last experience with the band, with its glitching drums and synths flooding the room with chaos! If this song doesn’t click with you straight away, I implore you, give it time…!
The set dives into desolate territory on the song ‘Metroland Is Burning’ with some fantastic low-end vocals from Jonathan depicting the landscape painted by the last two Everything Everything albums, with mentions to the conceptual Kevin, an AI character that acts as a narrative voice for Jonathan to portray. ‘Your Money, My Summer’ is possibly the most nostalgic track on the new record with a very Radiohead-style chorus and a slow, steady drum groove from Michael. The slow opening Everything Everything songs always pack the biggest punch with the best progressions, and the track ‘Canary’ is a strong example of this, from its weighty and melancholic piano chords to the elaborate drum pattern in the choruses.
Entering the last leg of the main set, ‘Enter The Mirror’ is certainly a track that has grown on me after watching it performed live, featuring filter synths that open the song up and an angular vocal delivery. A small light is placed behind Jonathan, reflecting waves of white and blue as he stands like a preacher. Now, after the bulk of the set so far emanating from ‘Raw Data Feel’ and ‘Mountainhead’, the song ‘Night Of The Long Knives’ is a complete throwback with its opening arpeggiated synths bringing the audience into ecstatic overload. Rhythmically, this track is one of the band’s strongest and tightest with usage of syncopation and floating hi-hats taking hold of the soundplay.
From here onward, the rest of the set is complete with wall-to-wall classics, beginning with ‘Cough Cough’, arguably the band’s first big hit. The introduction and opening verse are almost entirely rhythmical, with nonchalant filler words and heavy tom drums adorning the song’s backbone. Eventually, the track evolves into a glistening chorus, high falsetto vocals and chants. Truthfully, this track is the absolute apogee of Everything Everything’s catalogue; songs of theirs like ‘Photoshop Handsome’, ‘Cold Reactor’, ‘Kemosabe’ and ‘Distant Past’ are all higher up on my favourites list, but I will always have the time to appreciate this track with all my heart.
The crowd bless the band with an overwhelming applause before they head into the aforementioned ‘Photoshop Handsome’, the only track in the set to come from their ‘Man Alive’ debut record. The band have always had a futuristic bent to their music, but ‘Photoshop Handsome’ is by far, their most twisted and nihilistic viewpoint on technology, fashion culture and societal change. Complete with 8-bit synths and disjointed chord changes, this song probably stands in my top 3 songs of theirs, and for very good reason! But, my favourite for me will most likely always be ‘Distant Past’ which closes the set faultlessly. There’s not much to say about this song that hasn’t already been raved about by critics; the strong vocal performances and infectious groove grab the audience by the throats as they reverberate the chorus back to the band before Alex ends the track on his unique loop-evolving guitar solo.
The crowd show their demand for an encore as they stomp and cheer their way through the intermission leading to the band’s return to the stage. Now, even after 15 years of studio album output, ‘Mountainhead’s lead single ‘Cold Reactor’ has been heralded as the band’s best song since ‘Distant Past’, and it’s not hard to see why! Backed by repeating vocal loops that evoke memories of Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’, the song has an obsessively catchy chorus with a melody that most bands of Everything Everything’s stature could only dream of writing. The penultimate ‘Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread’ is yet another classic track from the band’s ‘Get To Heaven’ album, skippy and dancehall-esque in rhythm not unlike ‘The End Of The Contender’.
The extent of the audience’s singalongs are now stretching towards them following the backing vocals as well as the lead melody lines! Closing the night is the somewhat underappreciated ‘No Reptiles’; this is certainly a track that is well-loved, but not often talked about compared to Everything Everything giants like ‘Distant Past’ or ‘Night Of The Long Knives’. This song builds up slowly and gradually with the pay-off being something unlike anything in the set; lyrically, cryptic yet life-affirming with repeating phrases of “a fat child in a pushchair old enough to run” and feeling “like I might be on the right path, the path that takes me home”. What a monumental track to end the night on, a night that has been nothing but euphoric and dynamically exciting from start to finish! Props to both Divorce and Everything Everything for a wonderful night that is already taking place as one of the best gigs of the year for me!
Everything Everything:
Jonathan Higgs – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Jeremy Pritchard – bass guitar, synths, backing vocals
Michael Spearman – drums
Alex Robertshaw – lead guitar, backing vocals
Peter Sené – keyboards, synths, percussion
Everything Everything setlist:
‘The Mad Stone’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Wild Guess’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘The End Of The Contender’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Pizza Boy’ (from 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album)
‘Kemosabe’ (from 2013 ‘Arc’ album)
‘R U Happy?’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Teletype’ (from 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album)
‘Metroland Is Burning’ (from 2021 ‘Raw Data Feel’ album)
‘Your Money, My Summer’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Canary’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Enter The Mirror’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Night Of The Long Knives’ (from 2017 ‘A Fever Dream’ album)
‘Cough Cough’ (from 2013 ‘Arc’ album)
‘Photoshop Handsome’ (from 2010 ‘Man Alive’ album)
‘Distant Past’ (from 2015 ‘Get To Heaven’ album)
(encore)
‘Cold Reactor’ (from 2024 ‘Mountainhead’ album)
‘Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread’ (from 2015 ‘Get To Heaven’ album)
‘No Reptiles’ (from 2015 ‘Get To Heaven’ album)