Everything But The Everything


Everything but the Everything Everything but the Everything should be anything but a success, their title included. In distinctly millennial fashion the band isn’t interested in clear, concise musical composition, nor in refined production value or adequate sound mixing. Everything feels raw, untamed, and new - but in the strangest of ways, all of these warts are a good thing. They complement the already dodgy, bizarre, even maybe off-the-rails aesthetic Everything but the Everything seems to be going for. And they succeed - both objectively as one of 2020’s most interesting musical groups and as something that is thoroughly off the rails. 


Having released a series of exclusive singles by way of Spotify, Soundhound, and iTunes, the best way to hear the band’s new ‘album’ is listening to the entirety of their ‘Popular’ songs playlist on the Spotify platform. The playlist acts like a record with a distinctive, three-act structure - songs ranging from soft, brooding ruminations to flat-out effeminate, Henry Rollins-esque wrathful sermons on everything from the world ending to the insanity of broken relationships and broken homes. The band’s powerful compositions are only added to by a selective group of singers featured on several of the tracks - indie darlings Luke Sweeney and Sophia Prise on the group’s single ‘Just’ to name a few. 

Everything but the Everything’s quirky disposition is helped by the band self-releasing all of their work to date. Such a distributive method enables a sense of intimacy with the group’s music, a sense that you’re sharing something personal with them by listening to what they have to say. The lyrics and musical sound are raw and painful, a sort of melodious cacophony as it were. This is reflected literally and viscerally in standout tracks such as ‘Intimacy’, ‘Can’t Allow’, ‘This Cage’, and ‘Chalk and Blood’. All of the songs share a dissonant coherence, a sort of willful refusal to be refined or technically polished. The result of this is something that one could argue is mandatory (if dangerous) listening when in the heat of a moment. So many songs would benefit from the band’s twisty, clangy composition of otherwise beautifully-styled, deeply soulful musical ruminations. It’s this brutality mixed with the beauty which makes the songs’ effectiveness tick, the juxtaposing patterns of sound akin to the spontaneity of genuine, emotional responses. 

SPOTIFY: 

 Everything but the Everything’s cult potential lies not only in their executions but with the blunt yet strangely articulate nature of their lyrics. That’s a similarity shared with fellow throwback bands yearning for the days of Grateful Dead, Simon & Garfunkel, and even the more contemporary Phantom Planet. In many ways the music of said bands was more about feeling than actual listening experience, the sounds really conduits for something deeper and more meaningful. Continuing in that tradition compliments the severity of present-day cultural scenarios - i.e. the Covid pandemic and the Floyd protests. Part of the giddy intensity lies in the chilly gravity such throwback sound now evokes - something both elevating if dispiriting. 

Joshua Beach
Melbourne, AUS
12/2020

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