Timothy O’Brien reviews the latest Elephants and Dogs album, Everybody's Smiling, Nobody's Happy
Few albums in the shoegaze genre manage to capture the allure of the style quite like Elephants and Dogs does. Elephants and Dogs' debut album, Everybody's Smiling, Nobody's Happy, is an entrancing ethereal soundscape with hauntingly beautiful melodies. From the opening track, Seventh Circle, to the raucous penultimate, VMC, the album never fails to hold your attention.
The album has eight tracks, and the overall sound is starry-eyed and gossamer. My favorite track, Black Sheep, has a slower tempo and a more melancholy feel. The vocals are soft and gentle, and the guitars create an atmospheric backdrop. Another standout track is VMC, which has a more upbeat tempo and an infectious melody.
The album starts with a very mellow and relaxing introduction, a perfect way to show off the dreamy vibe. It then moves into some of the more ambient and genre-bending parts of the album, and it's clear that the band wanted to show off their technical abilities and emotional melody writing. Even though the album is less experimental than their previous work, plenty of beautiful melodic moments still suck you into their sonic universe. The album feels like a more mature version of their earlier work, and it's clear that they've grown as musicians.
The musicianship on display is top-notch, with layer upon layer of shimmering guitars and hypnotic rhythms. The vocals are often back-grounded, but they still manage to convey a sense of longing and despair that is essential to the whole starry-eyed experience that we have come to know and love from this band.
The songs are all spectacularly written and performed, and they all flow together perfectly to create a cohesive immersive listening experience. The production is also top-notch, with each layer of sound perfectly balanced against the others. It's the kind of album you can just lose yourself in for half an hour or more, leaving it on repeat.
If you're a fan of dreamy, atmospheric music, you need to check out Everybody's Smiling, Nobody's Happy. It's one of the most captivating shoegaze albums to come out of Look Up Records.
Listen to Everybody's Smiling, Nobody's Happy:
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