It’s been six years since the
last Bombay Bicycle Club record. In 2014 I wrote that it was a
testament to their quality that they never release the same record twice.
That’s true again here, with album number 5 once more sounding decidedly them,
while at the same time moving in yet another direction to all its
predecessors. Everything Else has Gone Wrong is a
comparatively subdued and stripped down record. Despite flashes of the kinetic
(‘Is It Real’), this album for the most part neither soars nor rocks: it
envelops. A warm, predominantly calm experience, this is another excellent
piece of work. It’s not, for me, truly vintage Bombay Bicycle Club (for
that see either 2011’s A Different Kind of Fix or 2009’s I
Had the Blues but I Shook them Loose). But it gets marks for longevity (it was a
January release),
and for – yet again – refraining from easy replication of previous successes. Note
that the title track is especially awesome. It’s telling that all 5 Bombay
Bicycle Club records have made this list in their respective years.