Album reviews: Everything Everything, The Flaming Lips, and Doves

Everything Everything’s ‘Re-Animator’ is a fascinating exploration of human consciousness, The Flaming Lips’ latest album is both beautiful and evocative, while Doves are still challenging themselves after 30 years

Everything Everything pack global anxiety and paranoia into exquisite songs on their fifth record (Press image)

Everything Everything – Re-Animator

★★★★★

Everything Everything frontman Jonathan Higgs is fascinated by humanity. In previous albums, including their Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut Man Alive, this takes shape in political diatribes: the Manchester-formed band railed against world leaders and social ignorance. But on their fifth and best record, Re-Animator, they turn away from all that, and explore the human mind instead. An easy listen this is not.

Higgs spares no mercy in his vivid, detailed lyrics. Backed by bassist Jeremy Pritchard’s ominous grooves on single “Arch Enemy”, he’s a man praying to a giant, sentient fatberg: “Jets like wire cut your body, they/ Slice your teats/ Calcified and stately cheeks.” There’s a wry humour here – Higgs seems to delight in grotesque imagery, delivering lines in his signature falsetto and stuttering half-raps.

While Everything Everything are known for their eclectic sound, vaguely referred to by critics as “art rock”, Re-Animator is the most assured the band have ever been. Michael Spearman’s skittering tempos usher the listener through each chapter, while the synths and keys serve as constellations guiding the way. The celestial “Planets” builds towards the tender “Birdsong”, a moment of clarity on an album that rarely sits still. Re-Animator packs global anxiety and paranoia into exquisitely crafted songs. A superb album. ROC

The Flaming Lips – American Head

★★★★☆

In the past two decades since their turn-of-the-century masterpieces The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, The Flaming Lips have continued on an unpredictable path. Alongside the Oklahoma rock band’s more typical studio albums came wild tangents: reimaginings of Pink Floyd and Beatles albums, collaborations with Miley Cyrus, Kesha and Deap Vally, and a 24-hour song (also released as limited edition flash drives embedded within human skulls). Even last year’s King’s Mouth told the story of a giant, mythic king baby who became a galaxy-absorbing hero and died while rescuing his people – narrated by The Clash’s Mick Jones. American Head addresses something more universal – memories of childhood, adolescence and family, and their lifelong imprint on us – with an expansive sound that is equally accessible, tender and surreal.

Mortality is tackled with compelling childlike directness. “Brother Eye” is a bleak but resplendent plea to frontman Wayne Coyne’s bandmate Steven Drozd and older brothers to – in the songwriter’s words – “not kill themselves” (“Brother I don’t want you to die/ Brother can you live forever/ Brother I don’t want to cry.”) The spectre of death features, too, in the wistful “Mother I’ve Taken LSD”, to which Kacey Musgraves adds sweet backing vocals, while the wonderfully dreamy Americana opener “Will You Return/ When You Come Down” reflects on lost friends (“Now all your friends are dead/ And their ghosts/ Floating around your bed”). The falsetto, the magical tinkling of an offbeat xylophone and layers of blissful harmonies add to the celestial image of the afterlife.

The bucolic tone throughout conjures flashbacks with wide-eyed wonder, especially in “Dinosaurs on the Mountain”. On this melodic gem, distant vocals, circling synths and acoustic guitar strummed to a lullabic tempo capture the melancholic nostalgia as Coyne recalls watching shape-shifting trees from the car window on the vast highway to a holiday aged eight, “before I became aware of the dangers and sadness of the world”. Another twist for the Lips, but one that’s beautiful and evocative. EB

Doves – The Universal Want

★★★★☆

Band reunions can often appear contrived. For all an artist’s insistence of it being “the right time”, often these things reek of emptied bank accounts and semi-retirement boredom. But for Doves – whose members have dabbled in solo projects in the 11 years since their last record, Kingdom of Rust – it’s simply a case of them being good and ready.

New album The Universal Want manages to feel relevant, but not preachy. “Last night I dreamt/I was sent to a place of innocence/ Hello old friend/ We can't pretend,” Jimi Goodwin sings on “Prisoners”, which takes aim at misplaced nostalgia. “Cycle of Hurt” throws in sinister mutterings of “traps” and “tricks”, while the magnificent “Cathedrals of the Mind” thrives on glimmering synths and warm acoustics.

The Latin dance rhythms on “Mother Silverlake” are an intriguing glimpse at what might have been had they continued as their early band incarnation, Sub Sub (their studio burnt down in 1996 and they started from scratch as an indie-rock group). Single “Carousels”, a tribute to the late Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen, samples the drummer’s rhythms amid themes of childhood memories. After 30-odd years, you could forgive a band for taking the easier path into complacency. But Doves have taken a different – better – road. ROC