Man Alive

Emerging amidst a turgid, uninspired slew of UK guitar bands dubbed ‘landfill indie’ by the UK music press, Manchester’s Everything Everything quickly stood out due to the sheer volume of off-kilter ideas crammed into their frenetic blend of genres and styles. 2010 debut Man Alive kicks off with “MY KZ, UR BF” in which the band transpose the scenario set out Shaggy’s caught-with-his-pants down pop hit “It Wasn’t Me” to the moment an atomic bomb goes off. It’s certainly an original concept and one that aptly sets the scene for a record that fuses the complexity of math rock with the slick pop stylings of early 2000s R&B, while racing through references to Faraday cages, computer keyboard configurations and dog food brand Pedigree Chum. The band may have bristled at the ‘boffin rock’ tag Man Alive landed them with, but there are some distinctly un-average minds at work at here.