Written by: Dave Cantrell
Don’t do it! No, stop, do not hit ‘play’! For the love of all that is sane and sacred, do…not…push…that…bu- NO!!! Well, that’s it, you’ve gone and done it. You’ve hit ‘play’ and the first track off The Everlasting Yeah’s debut album Anima Rising is playing in your ears, which is fine, great even. I mean, it’s a stunning album opener, it’s packed with charge and verve and an undilutable rock’n’roll charm and barrels through every second of its four-minute-forty-nine running time like it’s on an animated skyrocket train powered by the pure exuberance of seven dozen six-year-olds attacking a trampoline with a demonic glee, every bounce and squeal of joy getting converted straight into the engine of this song. You’ll love it with every fiber of your pounding heart because you’ll be afforded no other choice. The track, titled, with unnerving honesty, “A Little Bit Uh-Huh & A Whole Lotta Oh Yeah,” brags effortlessly with its own pop-rock eternality. It is of such hooky pummel and steadfast breakneck acceleration that you’ll never forget it from the instant you hear it and there’s the problem. You went and hit ‘play’ – despite my most fervent warnings, mind – and now you’ve got the track stuck in your head for the rest of your life and possibly longer. Good thing it’s so good then, huh, offering as it does the primacy of “Ballroom Blitz” grafted on to the blissful brilliance of the teenaged Peel-stunning Undertones. Of all the earwoms, this is one you’ll welcome with its own little corner in the catacombs of that jumbled music library you call a brain.
The mention right there of Derry’s favorite sons, though contextually accurate, was no editorial accident, as one of the two guitarists fronting the Yeah’s assault (along with primary singer and former That Petrol Emotion member Raymond Gorman) is one Damian O’Neill, ensuring a touch of Fender-fed rumbustiousness all through Anima Rising. Add in the lively jump and thump of bassist Brendan Kelly and Ciaron McLaughlin on drums (also both TPE alumni) and the result is a gloriously combustible little quartet that’s not only grounded in the sacred basics of the great rock traditions but also knows a thing or two about bringing the fierce lashings of the form to heel. Beyond that jams-kicking outset the band settles into a more subdued street funk groove (“[Whatever Happened To The] Hoodlum Angels”) that, aside from nailing the slink-rock stylee with the surest of hands, demonstrates the four’s flair for sticking crazy tight to the deepest inside of the pocket even as the track unspools into a fade-out beat trance that eclipses the 6-minute mark. Keeping that boil on simmer while the gas jets down below are all turned quietly to eleven is often the province of musicians that have seasoned into their craft and The Everlasting Yeah excel at exactly that type of tension.
As the handclap- and yeah yeah yeah-studded message of “New Beat on Shakin’ Street”‘s chorus is getting hammered righteously in place, the band churns eagerly underneath, champing at the bit to be let loose, and once the opportunity arrives they don’t muck about, sounding like a combination of Television throwing a garage party and Blue Orchids going off the hook. Great fun. The incessant pop-throb of “Taking That Damn Train Again” takes all the tropes that title suggests – a locomotive chugga-chuggin’ tempo, the rhythm section coming forever ’round the bend, guitars doing the doubled-up round robin like it’s ‘Chuck Berry joining Johnny Cash’ time, some woo-hoo-hoo‘s and some honking, if a bit avant, saxes courtesy Terry Edwards sounding the signal – and rip them up for miles. It’s a ride you’d rather not end, its 8-minute distance truly bringing a new meaning to the phrase ‘tearing up the track.’
Lest you think it’s all rock ’em sock ’em around here, sandwiching the propulsive “All Around the World” that’s not a million miles from the manic pop thrill of the band’s former unit, are the lucent love ballad “Everything’s Beautiful,” McLaughlin handling the vocal, and “The Grind” that, though it wants for nothing in the rocking out department, nonetheless departs a jazzy tad from the core tenets, stretching out and building an aggressively hypnotic massif of, well, grinding but soaring guitars and minimal words atop an Adamsonian bassline and some peerless – and timeless – Buddy Rich’ed rock drumming. In a sense, if you pretend that power-pop was actually based on Middle Eastern modalities you’ll have an idea but only barely. An instant reputation-making opus that spirals and weaves and breathes and sufi-dances past the 12-minute mark without for one second losing its intrigue, it’s the kind of track you used to hear on your late night FM station back in the immortal days of yore when it was just you and the glow of the radio dial in a darkened room and you’d lie there listening in a growing state of levitated amazement willing the song to never end and then when it did it really didn’t but kept playing in the echo loop chamber of your memory, guaranteeing that 1) you had an ecstatically sleepless night and 2) you’d be down at your local record emporium the next morning when it opened to secure your own copy of this powerful thing, missing school or work or whatever if necessary.
Which is precisely what you should do as regards Anima Rising. Whichever modern form your own emporium takes, buy this record first chance. Here, we’ll even give the link where you can order it, plus provide the impetus via that shot-of-adrenaline opening track. Now go get ’em.
