Remember when, about seven years ago, Yellowcard decided to take songs-about-girls punk the extra mile, added a violinist as a full-time member of the band and made all the 'tween punks in training bras a little misty? It was fantastic timing and Yellowcard lived high on the hog for a little while. The Yellowcard phenomenon was interesting to watch for a minute but, after their fans reached/finished puberty, it was all over; Yellowcard lost all of its' market presence and went on indefinite hiatus [word has it that there is a new record forthcoming on Hopeless Records in 2011 –ed], leaving the next group of verging-on-pubescent girls with no punk band to look at and swoon.
As has been proven dozens of times throughout music history, pop music abhors a vacuum and, while it may have taken a little longer than anticipated, Everyone Everywhere and the band's self-titled debut LP have rushed in to fill the void.
There's nothing wildly complicated about Everyone Everywhere and, to be perfectly honest, anyone over the age of majority who hears the record will get a wry chuckle as singer Brendan McHugh agonizes over “hard” lessons learned and prattles out half-baked existential metaphors like “They won't use Mapquest and I don't think they have a GPS” (from “Blown Up Grown Up”) to express feelings of confusion and a sense of feeling lost, and covers the 'bad high school poetry' base with lines like “Calling people is out now/Cryptic, unfriendly. Humans shouldn't know secret codes” (from “Fld Ovr”) which say little but speak volumes.
Such criticism might seem damning but, really, it isn't; the sophomoric stance that each song takes seems genuine and the band plays it straight-faced which just means that Everyone Everywhere is geared for a younger audience than most might expect. Throughout songs including “Music Work, Paper Work,” “I Feel Fine” ad “Obama House, Fukui Prefecture,” the band sets lyrics they're not sure they believe themselves (but fans will hoist on banners or write in the margins of binders) against solidly classic emo strains (which older listeners will swear owe a debt to Paul Simon too) without bothering to grandstand or really be attention grabbing, but attain all of the attention they're not even trying for because young listeners will push closer in their desire to believe. Because of that, even detractors will find that there's no easy way to hate this band or its' debut; at worst, those that don't like it will be indifferent to it.
Artist:
www.everyoneeverywhere.com/
www.myspace.com/everyoneeverywhere
Album:
A limited pressing of Everyone Everywhere's self-titled debut is available now on 12” vinyl. Buy it here directly from Tiny Engines . A CD release of the album is scheduled to come out as a Japanese import on September 14, 2010 through Moorworks. Pre-order it here on Amazon .
