Everything But The Everything let us have a listen to their song, The Story, with guest vocals from Sophia Prise.
This feels straight out of an 80s punk rock club. I’m thinking Siouxsie Sioux or Deborah Harry style vocals. Really confident, characterful vocal performance with some real swagger that helps carry this song.
The Story sits confidently in a time machine all of its own and harkens back to those late nights in a dive bar somewhere in the South of England. Something about the song feels like 80s Brit punk. However, this is an American based project, and Sophia, although sounding slightly European in some of her pronunciation is more likely to also be an American, but one with a hugely diverse ability in her vocal range. Perhaps classically trained. She certainly has some qualities in her voice that take her far beyond the normal punk rock singer.
The bassline for this song feels a little Billy Idol – White Wedding. No problem for me here, I love that song, and it all helps to make the track sit comfortably in the genre its reaching for.
I can only imagine how much fun this act have performing live. Sophia is just killing it and giving it her all, and the instrumental ability of all of the other players is really quite something. They gel well together. I imagine that this is a project with several collaborators, all of whom really should be sharing a stage together (if they’re not already). They, and their audience, would have the time of their life.
For me, this is a superb song which is let down by its production. The track is almost mono with no separation between the instruments which leads to a rather messy mix. More panning and stereo would give each individual instrument some more space. It feels at the moment that everything is sitting right down the middle, both between the speakers, and in the frequency range. I’d suggest a pretty huge boost in the overall EQ in the top two octaves to try and bring the track a little more to life. This would help bring out the high hat and cymbals work and give some more clarity to Sophia’s voice.
An exciting, on point song that sits well in the 80s punk rock genre, and one which has some real power, attitude and swagger.