The Beat Surrender

Archive of Everything are either a four piece or a solo act (depends on your state of mind!) Chris Blundell is the guy behind the project. Promo material talks about four minds creating the album, Lead Vocals are Chi (The Salesman), Lead Guitar is Jude (The Rebel), Bass/Synth is Aaron (The Navigator) and on Percussion is Gideon (The Underdog). Decided not to risk my sanity (what’s left of it) in trying to work this puzzle out as all the other information leads me to believe that the band is just the one person.

Described as Electronic, Art Rock and Pop, the music for me is a weird combination of all which if it wasn’t for the superb vocals could have failed miserably. However the first track, Hello Children which was the debut single release in June 2007 is a good opener to the album. The intro is spoken words to music not exactly rap, infact nothing like rap but different a variation. The vocals are well performed with good guitar section.

Track two is I Value My Sanity, this has a very long intro, however after waiting for around one minute the guitar burst in and a taste of things to come. The track felt like an overnight crossing on the ferry, the music and vocals seemed to built and built then crashed down again. This was for me the stand out track on the album very cleverly put together, don’t personally like the expression intelligent pop as it implies everything else is for numptys which clearly it isn’t. However this is a clever track well thought out mixing the best of electronic with indie/rock and pop. For me I would have to say that many of the tracks pay a passing resemblance to the better tracks from Muse/Radiohead but each unique in its own way and this is the best of the bunch.

Straight into Here Lies, no drawn out intro for this track, really good guitars, vocals appear to have been electronically adjusted but this really suits the whole style of the track. Celebrity Meltdown is another good track. The opening four tracks really impressed however the next three were less than impressive, perhaps because the style became much more meloncoly/slower. Archive of Everything (first time I have seen a track named after the band but then again the lead singer has the same name as the album) Mouthful Of Words Part 1, Mouthful Of Words Part 2 and Amber Dawn are all in a style not too dissimilar to Keane, Snow Patrol, etc., etc. but perhaps not as good!

But just as I started to feel a little downhearted Falling Over Yourself came along, while this was still on the slow melancholy side it has something different about it. It stands out as a track worth playing over and over again. Indebted To A Prohibitor was next and this had a new feel about it, a little country but still rock/pop (the country bit came from the guitars) Weak Skin was another stand out track, the intro was again slow and very drawn out but the blues influences in the guitar show what great flare and imagination this guy has.

Fickle Finger of Fate had a change in the vocal style but didn’t lose any of the quality. A great sound, nice twinkling guitars with gentle crashing of cymbals (not easy to achieve) Last track was But I Still Love You took a long time to get going and even when it did, it moved between gentle to exceptionally slow and back to slow. If the vocals hadn’t been so good I could just have switched off at this stage however I persisted and in the end loved the track, exceptional guitars.

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