Riot in a Melody Factory

A couple of weeks ago, while listening to a playlist on Spotify, I suddenly got that wonderful feeling of needing to know what song I was listening to. The song was Distant Past, by the band Everything Everything, and I’ve been listening to their album Get To Heaven quite a bit since then.

You can’t miss the influence of Radiohead in their music. Reviewers use phrases like “complex instrumentation,” “mathematical grooves,” and “a slightly more animated Thom Yorke” when describing them. One also aptly described their sound as “a riot in a melody factory.”

Set against the catchy melodies are sci-fi lyrics from a dystopian future (or present? past?). These are sometimes sung very quickly, so there’s a lot to unpack. From Wikipedia:

The lyrics were inspired when the Manchester band took a year off from touring, and [vocalist Jonathan] Higgs started watching rolling news on a loop”. Higgs said, “After we’d finished the record, I read the lyrics back and I realised I’d written a horror bible.

I noticed another theme among reviews. Critics nearly always find a way to mention that the band’s music is kind of weird: “quirky vocals,” “weirdo,” “nerdy,” “cerebral,” “eccentric.” I guess it is kind of unusual, but I just thought of it as “good.” Which is, you know, unusual.

How did I find this band?

When I decided to write this post, I quickly realized that I didn’t really know how I had discovered the band. It’s really hard to keep track of this. You listen to a lot of duds when trying to find new songs that you like, so it doesn’t make sense to write down where you found everything as you go. You don’t always know immediately how much you like something, either.

With a little browser history forensics, I was able to piece it together:

• I started by searching on Spotify for Belle and Sebastian.
• I scrolled down to their Artist Playlists.
• Distant Past is in their home listening playlist.