Album Review

Everything Everything – My Keys Your Boyfriend

• 14th Oct 2009

Manchester’s undoubtedly in for a shock when their genre-hopping born and bred band, Everything Everything creep out of the wood work in what you may expect to be a sparkly space-suit. Imagine a band that is able to flirt with as many musical influences as you’ve had hot dinners and it may sound a little something like ‘My Keys Your Boyfriend’.

Once you’ve become accustomed to the chop and change of true 80’s synth, not so far from the likes of Duran Duran, to the vocals that at one minute sound like Futureheads lead singer, Barry Hyde to the operatic class of Freddie Mercury, ‘My Keys Your Boyfriend’ becomes infectiously catchy. There ar e several layers you have to brave through though to get to this, but once you’ve found it, there is no going back… you’re hooked.

On paper, melody, lyrics and even rhythm should be laughed off as a crazy persons jib, but it works nonetheless. Playing to the part of the mind that holds your guilty pleasures, ‘My Keys Your Boyfriend’ certainly satisfies. However, when trying to make head or tail of the track, the musical complexities of the song may over-power any attempt at analytical approach.

Second Track, ‘NASA is on your side’, follows suit in that it holds a simialr amount of genre fusion but at a slightly calmer level. Instead of being overcome with the desire to be an astronaut as you might expect from the title and the nature of the first track, ‘NASA is on your side’ offers a toned-down, Everything Everything. This is not to say however, that ‘NASA is on your side’, resembles anything remotely mainstream of course, but it may be easier to swallow. This is truly the calm after the storm, that is ‘My Keys Your Boyfriend’.

Dangers in these tracks lie in Everything Everything’s ability to perform them live. Although if they are able to create this musical composition, something tells me they might just have a way of creating the same delight live.
The tracks are fun and above all, make you smile at something different. As the band name suggests, they truly do have Everything Everything.