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Sep 11, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Everything Everything

British art-rockers Everything Everything have released a new album, Re-Animator, today via Infinity Industries/AWAL. Now they have shared a video for “Big Climb,” a song not shared prior to the album’s release. Plus now that the album’s out you can stream the whole thing below. Also, we recently posted our podcast interview with Everything Everything on Re-Animator and you can listen to that here.

Everything Everything self-directed the “Big Climb” video, which features the band in suits performing in an office and pokes fun at corporate culture, while also making some political statements about the damage climate change has already done.

The band collectively had this to say about the video in a press release: “We started to notice a lot of online dejection at the state of the world that young people stand to inherit. It was nihilistic, but perfectly understandable and basically rational. They are inheriting a rapidly warming planet with few jobs and little affordable housing, created by previous generations who seem utterly unapologetic. The attitude is ‘We fucked it, now it’s your problem so you fix it.’ It’s shameful that we’re relying on 15 year olds to lead the way. We wanted to satirize all of that.”

Read our recent COVID-19 Quarantine Check-In interview with Everything Everything’s Jonathan Higgs.

In April the band shared the album’s “In Birdsong,” via a video for the track that was one of our Songs of the Week. Then when the album was announced they shared “Arch Enemy,” which was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared a strange video for “Arch Enemy.” Then they shared another new song from the album, “Planets,” via a video. “Planets” was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then in July they shared another song from the album, “Violent Sun,” via a video for the track directed by the band’s frontman Jonathan Higgs. “Violent Sun” also made our Songs of the Week list.

The album was recorded last December at RAK studios in London with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Sharon Van Etten, David Byrne). Prior to that there was a year of writing and demoing. A press release points out that for this album the band wanted to focus “on harmonies and melodies over synths and programming.”

In terms of lyrical themes, the album tackles “wonderment at the wider world despite the horror of its politics; existentialism and the prolonged, if fading, youthfulness of being in a touring band; and the ominous threat of climate change. All things which contribute to a sense of one door closing while another awaits.”

Frontman Jonathan Higgs also became interested in the theory of the bicameral mind, as put together by psychologist Julian Jaynes. The press release explains the theory: “It argues that early in human evolution, the two sides of the brain were next to each other but functioned independently. In essence, one side would hear the other sending instructions via a disembodied voice—a zombie-like state of pre-consciousness.”

Higgs further expounds: “This idea of the divided self captivated me. Jaynes attributes this to the origin of gods, people ascribing deity status to this voice they could hear in their head. All this blew my mind, and I started thinking of ways I could make this a central concept. It really touched me. So across the whole record there are millions or references to this theory—to having a split brain, two selves, hearing voices.”

The band features Jonathan Higgs (vocals), Jeremy Pritchard (bass), Michael Spearman (drums), and Alex Robertshaw (guitar). Their last full-length was 2017’s Mercury Prize-nominated A Fever Dream, although they released the Deeper Sea EP in 2018.

Read our 2017 interview with Everything Everything on A Fever Dream.

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