British band Everything Everything have been treating us to a pile of new tracks over the course of the Covid pandemic, which has truly proven a welcome respite from all the madness.
The first two singles off their forthcoming record RE-ANIMATOR, “Arch Enemy” and “In Birdsong“, have both been excellent teasers for the full product; a blend of what we’ve come to know from the group, and some surprises – which in itself is what we’ve come to expect from them. They’re nothing if not a group who know how to keep fans guessing.
The album’s third single, “Planets”, dropped last week and is no exception. The ‘celestial synths’ that start off the track would feel well placed in an episode of Stranger Things, and by the time the rhythmic chorus starts, it somehow comes as a surprise that the potpourri of musical styles and opaque lyrics that have served as the track’s foundation, would give birth to anything resembling a chorus at all. But there it is, in all the splendour that the band do oh-so-well, and you can’t help but find yourself dancing along.
As a pretty big fan of the band, this single has stayed with me more than the others to date as it felt the most out of place and surprising. Which for a band who have made a career out of surprising their listeners, is no easy feat come album five.
The video which has accompanied the track, however, does follow on with what we saw in the first two singles, with frontman Jonathan Higgs once again directing the video from lockdown, using spectral rendering and rudimentary DIY puppetry. This time, we meet “a chimpanzee lost within an existential dilemma: if the universe is so unfathomably huge, how can one primate come to terms with his relative insignificance?”
This falls back on the themes of the song itself, which Higgs says, “is about calling out to be loved, feeling unworthy and finding the love of the universe instead.”
Watch the video here:
Everything Everything‘s “Planets” is out now through Infinity Records in partnership with AWAL. RE-ANIMATOR comes out on 21st August 2020. It’ll be available on vinyl, cassette and digital formats, and you can pre-order it here.
