Artist: It's Everyone Else
Label: Self-released
Released: 2012
Runtime: 30:51
Rating: 4.1/5
It’s Everyone Else are a guy and a girl, two synths and a sampler. They clearly have plenty of ideas, and they’re open enough genre-wise that the music never gets stuck in repetition. Most of the vocals go to the gentler half of the duo, which doesn’t mean her voice is gentle. She has a high, piercing scream that stays within a certain frequency range and rarely leaves it, and the moment her vocal delivery gets repetitive enough to start stabbing at your ear, a very distinctive male voice takes over. Musically, they move around in the world of “post-” music, whether that’s rock, hardcore or electronica.
Just from looking at the album’s packaging, the unsuspecting consumer can tell it’s either a very well-thought-out concept or a cover-up for something bad. Luckily, this time it’s the former. The album comes in a sort of triangle, with an abstract image of a tyrannosaur’s head printed on it. The disc itself is black and minimalist. One look at the quirky, uniquely shaped packaging stirs up a healthy dose of curiosity, because there’s no way to predict what kind of musical substance is hiding inside.
I’d split the album into two parts. Each of the first five tracks could easily have been the opener. They all have a strong point, but it never quite develops to the end and just stops somewhere in the middle. That was probably the band’s intention. The first track shoots out of the starting blocks with a powerful, repetitive intro that sets the direction for the whole album. The uncompromising screaming is softened by the male vocal. With this kind of music, atmosphere is crucial, and the duo nails it. Rabies and Gentlemen opens with a piano accompanied by subtle vocals. The song builds up nicely and unfolds in true post-rock style. The ending is chopped off, and the listener feels like something else should have happened. Forget has a very Depeche Mode kind of vibe. A calm, distorted melody, together with nicely measured drums, carries us smoothly through the album. With Locust, my favorite on the first listen, the album only really starts in the traditional sense. I also love the dog barking toward the end. The melody alone is the kind that sucks you in, and that effect brings you right back down to earth. If I were the album’s producer, I’d pick Dinner for Two as the single. It’s a drum’n’bass rhythm with a great addition of distorted keys and the singer’s clean vocals, which come across as very feminine. Doubledead bursts in with a completely different approach, a speedcore intro and screaming, yet somehow it all makes sense and is surprisingly easy to listen to. I’d also stop at track ten, Parallels. The beginning, and the backing track that follows, sounds like something out of an Atari game, with the vocals flying over it all at breakneck speed.
Eppur si muove could easily be the title of the debut from Slovenian duo It’s Everyone Else. Just as I was slowly giving up on the Slovenian music scene’s lack of originality, when everything I heard felt like a recycled version of something I’d already heard, their album »Is it me?« landed in my hands. It came with a hint that it’s digital hardcore, but that label is only one little piece of the musical mosaic that went into building this soundscape.
So It’s Everyone Else have put out a truly fresh record. It’s very atypical for the Slovenian scene, and they deserve nothing but praise for that. Despite its dark approach, the album is very listenable. Nothing is overdone musically, so I’d recommend it to open-minded people no matter what kind of music they usually prefer. The only things that bugged me a bit were the length of the first few tracks and the fact that they ended just as I was getting into them. If you’d like to hear for yourself how it all sounds, click here!
Lineup
Lucijan Prelog – sound synthesizers, electronics, vocals
Pika Golob – vocals, sound synthesizer, sampler
Production
It’s Everyone Else
Tracklist
1. Weathercock
2. Rabies and Gentlemen
3. Pig Milk
4. Forget
5. Locust
6. Glass
7. Dinner for Two
8. Doubledead
9. Only Mothers and Clouds
10. Parallels
11. Oath to Order
