Poison Pop

Everything Everything’s new album ‘Poison Pop’ is the sound of a band reborn. It simmers with a direct, purposeful attitude: bringing guitars firmly back into full focus, their attitude fuelled by a visceral intensity and an uncompromising fire that will add a supercharged burst of energy to future live shows. It’s a synthesis of the varied strengths that they have presented throughout their enduring career – that love of subversive art-rock, the dynamism of their live shows, and the pop leanings that made their 2024 single ‘Cold Reactor’ such a mammoth Radio 1 airplay hit.

To be so reinvigorated is exciting simply because the Ivor Novello and Mercury Prize-nominated Everything Everything are already in tremendous health. Beyond the success of its lead single, their previous album, ‘Mountainhead’, took them to another level. Their sixth Top 10 album and one of the most acclaimed sets of their career, it took them to headline shows across the UK, selling out the O2 Academy Brixton, as well as Europe, Australia and multiple visits to North America – a rarity for most UK bands.

Jonathan says, “The album has a strong theme of addiction, particularly that of social media dopamine hits, culture wars and tribalism. The larger question posed is whether you continue to accept the life you are being presented with (‘drinking the slop’; allowing yourself to be brainwashed), or you break the spell and throw off these convictions. There has been a lot of talk about how to deal with the ills of social media, and it feels like we’re coming to a moment of reckoning with it.”