As Waves festival edges closer and closer, it’s time we talk about the headliner, the main event, the band everybody is talking about: the Mercury Music prize nominated sensation Everything Everything. And they seem just as excited as we are to take the Fire Station stage by storm on November 11.
As if the news of their headline wasn’t exciting enough, Everything Everything have also just announced their forthcoming 7th album ‘Mountainhead’, as well as releasing a brand new single, ‘Cold Reactor’, and a music video to accompany it. Even though very recently announced, the album already has an extremely visible theme running throughout. It is quite the antithesis of their previous album, ‘Raw Data Feel’, which was immensely futuristic, even turning to AI to help for inspiration with lyrical themes. ‘Cold reactor’ touches on how humanity is slowly deteriorating n by overusing technology to the extent of limiting communication and expression of strong emotions to that of emojis, “I sent you the image of a little yellow face, to tell you that I’m sad about the emptiness that’s all around me.” The music video, on the other hand, displays the physical actions depicted in the lyrics of the song, with men in yellow suits mining around a mountain, very much conveying the metaphorical concept of what the album is at this point.
The juxtaposition of lyrical and visual themes between their 6th and 7th albums further establishes the band’s aim to reinvent themselves with every album cycle. That said, they have also—impressively—managed to keep a definitive, noticeable sound that distinctively Everything Everything ‘We want to show people that in conventional-looking indie bands, the guitars don’t have to sound like guitars.’ Surprisingly, a lot of their inspiration derives from Sunderland bands, such as the Futureheads and Field music: “The idea of a four-piece guitar band who when on stage sounded nothing like a four piece guitar band was so inspiring to us.When they all started singing, we wanted to kind of replicate that.”
Back in 2007, when the band first started gigging, they struggled to find a sound that really fit them— experimental synth art-rock bands with guitars were noticeably scarce. However, the lads found what they were looking for in Sunderland. Hometown heroes, The Futureheads, took to the stage and proved to the soon-to-be world touring Everything Everything that this particular breed of band didn’t just exist, but had the power to set the crowd on fire. 16 years, seven albums, and countless world tours later, Everything Everything are set to return to Sunderland to rediscover what they fell in love with so long ago—and to headline Waves festival, of course. With their unapologetically original sound, they now have the ability to perform for the bands they supported and took inspiration from all that time ago, while also growing their North East fanbase like never before. As one of their first performances since the announcement of their upcoming album, the band are set to blow their audience away.