Album Review: A Fever Dream, Everything Everything

Aside from a surprise Mercury Music Prize nomination for their first album, Everything Everything have never received their due as one of British rock’s most reliably innovative forces.

Yet they’ve managed to consistently revitalise their sound, while holding true to their original mission statement of fusing Beyonce-style pop and emotive guitar music. The formula bears thrilling fruit on their fourth record, a chilly funk kaleidoscope brimming with ennui, wide-eyed delight and blistering tempos.

A Fever Dream locks into a groove early and thereafter keeps the foot to the floor. Opener ‘Night of the Long Knives’ is propelled by droning bass bursts, while single ‘Can’t Do’ is a falsetto-dirge in the Prince tradition, shimmering with the laddish yearning that is part of the four-piece’s Mancunian heritage.

Thereafter the formula remains largely unchanged: ‘Desire’ twinkles sadly, while the title track breaks into a sky-reaching chorus. But when a band nails an idiom as impressively as Everything Everything have here, who cares that all they want is to sound like themselves?

A Fever Dream is out now. Read our interview with Everything Everythinghere.