Wiki
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Release Date
18 June 2015
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Length
17 tracks
Get to Heaven is the third studio album by British band Everything Everything. Recorded primarily in Angelic Studios in Northampton during the latter half of 2014 with producer Stuart Price, it was released on 22 June 2015
A deluxe edition of the album was released simultaneously, featuring six tracks which missed the album's cut. The album peaked at number seven in the United Kingdom Albums Chart, and at number 29 in the Australian albums chart. The tracks "Distant Past", "Regret", "Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread" and "No Reptiles" were released as singles throughout 2015.
The album's lyrical themes are dark, focusing on global tensions and political happenings during 2014. The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, media coverage of the 2015 general election in the United Kingdom and various mass shootings influenced the album's lyrics, while the band's musical sound was composed to provide contradiction to the violent subject matter. As with previous Everything Everything work, the majority of the songs are presented as in-character narration.
Get to Heaven was received well by critics, with most reviewers noting the effectiveness of the album's message; others commented on the bold, aggressive nature of the album, with some labelling the tone "overwhelming".
Initial work on Get to Heaven was done during a busy touring schedule for second album Arc. Following this tour, the band rented studio space in Wales in an effort to be "alone and isolated", but nothing came of these sessions. The album itself was recorded at Angelic Studios in Northampton during 2014. The band hinted the album's production through their Twitter account in August 2014, and announced they were in the process of recording two weeks later.
The band went into the studio aiming to "make people want to move", and set about avoiding slower-paced songs that featured strongly on their previous album. This became apparent to them following the writing of eventual album closer "Warm Healer"; Higgs told Anthem Magazine that "we kind of ripped up that rule book after realizing, 'Right. Let’s not write something this quiet. Let’s do horrible stuff from now on'". The group worked on ideas for songs as they came to them, rather than their previous methods of practising and recording as a live group.
Though both previous albums were produced by David Kosten, they enlisted the support of producer Stuart Price after he impressed them with his work on a demo version of eventual single, "Regret". As Price is based in Los Angeles, the band emailed him samples of their work for his critique and receive his suggested mixes in return. These suggestions received mixed reactions from the band; at one point during production of "Hapsburg Lippp"—a track which ultimately did not make the final tracklisting—Price returned them a reggae-inspired mix as a joke. Higgs told Andy Morris of Gigwise that Price had an "ability to become one of us very quickly". Price joined them in person for the last nine days of recording. Alex Robertshaw told Digital Spy that his positivity made an impression on them: "Just another seriously creative person in the room with you is fantastic."
During recording sessions, lead vocalist Jonathan Higgs battled with depression following the end of the band's 150-date tour, calling it "an out-of-the-sauna-and-into-a-cold-bath experience", adding that "riding that low as well as trying to make a record was quite hard". He was affected by frequent mood swings as a result of his medication; bass guitarist Jeremy Pritchard said that these "affected us pretty adversely".
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