Everything Else Has Gone Wrong – Bombay Bicycle Club
★ ★ ★ ★
After a hiatus of almost six years, Bombay Bicycle Club have returned with an audacious and vivacious eleven-track album. You may recognize the band name from their early chart successes or maybe from their upbeat, guitar-driven melodies which, alongside bands like Vampire Weekend and Two Door Cinema Club, inspired indie rock music throughout the early 2010’s.
Everything Else Has Gone Wrong is stocked with neatly packaged songs which each build gently to a head. Most tracks start with a foundation; some sparsely spread instrumentation. That in place, we then get a captivating chorus. This builds tenderly into the final third, where the whole piece comes together in an eruption of emotive power. Then, the instruments fade out, and we’re left in the blissful hue of momentary silence.
After such a long break, it’s hard to believe that the songwriting – the lion’s share done by singer Jack Steadman – remains as playful and poetic as their early hits. Bombay have managed to stay faithful to their garage indie rock roots, while becoming more experimental, immersive, and immense than ever before.
Check out “Eat, Sleep, Wake…”, “Everything Else Has Gone Wrong”, “I Can Hardly Speak”, “Do You Feel Loved”, and “Racing Stripes”.
Nicholas Lane – Music Writer
