Everything Ever

Solid Ground

Written by: PP on 25/09/2014 21:33:52

Here's a band poised for a breakthrough based on their debut album "Solid Ground" alone. I stumbled upon Everything Ever from the New York / New Jersey area by mere accident, but their quirky form of emotive, angsty pop punk is impressive straight from the get go despite drawing obvious parallels to the highly influential and underrated late 90s pop punk band The Stereo. "Solid Ground" is based on a similar approach namely where alternative rock melodies are sped up significantly, and playful vocals have no issues traveling up-and-down the scale providing inventive, fresh melodies stuffed with constant catchphrases and quirky lyrics in between. Apply an emotive, angsty layer on top and you're pretty much in the same territory as Junior Battles on their brilliant "Idle Ages" from three years ago. Punchline is another band well-known for playing just this style.

That being said, Everything Ever manage to steer clear from sounding too much alike those bands thanks to the progressive undertones their interpretation of pop punk is flavored with. Much like Junior Battles, the melodies are often unpredictable and change quickly, especially in the vocal department where the unconventional lyricism of vocalist combo Andrew Paladino and John Trotta shines. Forget about monotonous vocal patterns; one of them is angsty and emotional, the other one almost breaks the mic into distortion as the vocals are shouted in the best Direct Hit! style through the mic. Both of them provide infectiously catchy lines - there's a moment on "Rock Bottom" which resembles the approach to fun vocal lines taken by The Dopamines on many of their best tracks - generally about under-achieving in life and that sort of thing. The aforementioned track has one of my favorite choruses on the record with its "now that I've hit rock bottom, I finally have some solid ground to stand on" after an emotional outpour of everything wrong with his life first. But really, I could fill this whole review with lines like that which are built up throughout the song and thus stand out by being excellent remarks in terms of the overall context of the track.

Pretty much every cut on the record will stick to your mind. Perhaps not on first listen - that's what music that toys with progressive ideals often has as a disadvantage - but these are some extremely catchy songs overall once they open up. Given the lyrical themes, the upbeat, punk rock-rooted guitar work, and the original and inventive take on pop punk that they've come up with, there are great things in store for Everything Ever in the future. Needless to say, this is a future FEST band for sure.

8

Download: Rock Bottom, Big Ideas, More Symptoms, Of Guilt
For the fans of: The Stereo, Junior Battles, Punchline, Direct Hit!
Listen: Facebook

Release date 08.04.2014
Self-Released

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