Take the time to reflect. Sit a moment with your sadness. Watch a drop of condensation snake its way down a window pane. Imagine the route it will take, the direction it will travel, and observe its path. It seems to be going where you hoped. Until it wobbles, and shakes, and takes a different path entirely. As the solitary droplet reaches its end and spills across the window ledge, you’re left with a question; what now?
‘Did You Ask To Be Set Free?’ is not the record As Everything Unfolds would ever have wanted to make. Tragically, they lost their drummer Jamie Gowers before its production. They could have walked away. They could have taken their memories and let them lie. But they haven’t. Instead, they have regrouped, and in deciding to look to the future, they have made their strongest album so far.
Understandably, it’s impossible to talk about this record without the circumstances of its creation. Any decision must have been difficult and there was no ‘correct’ choice. In this respect, the record feels like a series of questions and answers. The most pertinent; How are you going to approach this?
These songs exist in the shadow of tragedy, and its presence can be felt in every track. Even the song titles allude to it, and yet it sounds nothing like you might expect – yes, it fits clearly into the band’s oeuvre but it is not downcast or morose. It takes precisely one song to dispel that idea; ‘Gasoline’ is as fiery as its name suggests – it’s hugely upbeat and catchy, almost to the point of being a pop song. Perhaps surprisingly, it indicates that this is, musically at least, a record about moving on.
When listening back to the band’s second album ‘Ultraviolet‘, there’s a clear sense of direction. You could argue that they took that album’s big single – ‘Felt Like Home’ – as a starting point. The sound is still rooted in something of a metal-adjacent style of post-hardcore but they have stripped out the layers that defined their early work in favour of bigger grooves. It’s almost like they have reverse-engineered themselves into nu-metal, ending up with a sound closer to that of Dream State or even Dead Pony. It feels big and bold and exciting. Most songs would work as a single – at least a third of them could be played at a disco. Musically at least, it means this is a record about the future, a progression designed to move their career forward.
At a production level the sound is streamlined but in direct conversation with their previous work. It’s a record less about atmosphere, and more about feel. You can hear this on the gentle dancefloor beats of ‘Reverie’ – which are designed to make your hips sway – or on the shuffle under ‘Point Of View’. It also has a sense of momentum which lends even the heavier songs (and they do get heavy) a sense of agility, allowing clever chord changes to shift the rhythmic weight in wicked ways. The fast-riffing ‘Idols’ is a great example, as it is brisk and catchy but has a real bite.
The album has a certain Pick ‘N’ Mix variety. Some songs lean toward pop punk, others like ‘Find Another Way’ are more like power ballads. There are also plenty of harsh, heavy moments – notably the detuned main riff on ‘What You Wanted’ feels massive. Tying all these sounds together is a distinct overall tone. Because the ideas are carefully deployed, it never feels unbalanced or at risk of capsize. Unless, of course, it’s intentional. ‘Set It In Flow’ becomes increasingly intense and warped by some kind of wah-wah effect, making it one of the album’s most creative and striking songs.
Social media is not ideal for an artist. Anonymity is difficult and privacy is a nightmare. At one time a new album prompted a round of interviews, shows, maybe a few stories in the NME, but now oversharing has become part of the deal. This is not easy for anyone and tragedy makes it worse. As Everything Unfolds kept to themselves and this was a good thing. They neither burned themselves out nor painted themselves into a corner. This choice allowed them to continue. The influence of this on vocalist Charlie Rolfe is pronounced, and yet she has found a way to express herself that is both compelling and brilliant. While she has never been coy about the influence of Hayley Williams, these songs push that Paramore direction, leaning on drawn-out sounds, allowing her to share her grief through open-armed choruses.
The smeared opening to ‘Denial’ erects a screen between the performance and events that inspired it. The song is a strange, ugly expression of hurt that rapidly evolves into anger but it’s not one she sits easily with. The other songs express it in different ways but there is an undercurrent of distress, despair or maybe even anger. You can hear it break the surface on the short, snotty scream of ‘What do you take me for?’ but mostly it’s hidden, giving it a strange depth.
Think back to their first album, where songs like ‘Wither’ were written with a sense of downbeat sadness, and compare that to this. Despite the lyrics having a similar tone, listening to this unearths a truth. It doesn’t exist independent of the events that created it. It’s not a work of fiction, more a roman à clef. Listening to it on repeat is like a corkscrew, pulling you deeper into its secrets, rendering the paratext as text, making it genuinely upsetting. After all, this is a dazzling, devastating record inspired by a person who never had the chance to hear it.
‘Did You Ask To Be Set Free?’ is a potent mixture of experience, ambition and grief. Imagine a broken heart buried in a pop song; imagine a dove; listen to the sound of hope.
IAN KENWORTHY