Maybe I’m just not in the mood for slow-burning, Neil Young and CrazyHorse-inspired rock and roll. Echo-laden guitar rock just isn’t doingit for me like it used to: a development that probably speaks to thestyle's limited possibilities. Into my newly discovered apathycomes Everything is Fine, a band that takes most of their cues from theGalaxie 500 playbook and runs with it.Tract Records
Lead singer Marc Manning’s plaintive whine, which bares more than apassing resemblance to Dean Wareham, hovers over a bed of softly playeddrums and warm guitar tones. On Ghosts are Knocking on Walls, it isn’tthat Everything is Fine make some sort of tragic misstep, it’s thatthey make hardly any steps at all. In playing it safe, the band reduceswhat could have been an above average effort into something, well,average. Opener “1000 Seconds” seems to mine every slowcore trick inthe book from its distant guitar to Manning’s emotional vocals.Lyrically, themes of rain-drenched leaves, late night drives, and othermetaphors for emotional distance seem to run rampant. This isn’t to sayit’s all bad. The acoustic ballad “Long Night” is pretty and austere,successfully fusing Manning’s world weary lyricism to an affectingsong. I’ll even admit that on tracks like the overly long “Today is theDay” the band makes the song work by virtue of its floor tom shuffleand trebly guitar stabs.
While these are definite bright spots, toooften this album seems to be short changing the potential of Everythingis Fine. Sure, they can do a pretty convincing Galaxie 500, butis that all?
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