Indie band from Bergen, Norwegian has spawned the excellent Everything Now, and their new single "Lucifer" is a gloriously loud, all-guns-blazing meditation on everything that makes good music. Unapologetically embracing their pop rock origins, this song is a cleanse of angst, honesty, and creative liberty, teasing you about their forthcoming album imprint.
"Lucifer" slams open the door with an immediate pulse that shakes you by the collar from the very first strike of the guitar. The instrumentation is crunchy and muscular, with distorted guitars that blink on and off around a pounding rhythm section that never lets up. What's brilliant about all of this is that it's a wonderful collision of influences, booming yet radio-friendly pop-core with the edges of rock 'n' roll is never stratospheres away from that heart, close enough to always feel charged.
The song is about conflict and emancipation, a struggle between want, consequence, and the attraction to what is forbidden. Despite the title's eschatological implications, Everything Now uses it more metaphorically as an image of change and human complexity. It's snappy, dramatic, brainy, and never loses its pulse. The vocals slice through the production with incredible precision. It's both commanding and a little vulnerable at the same time. It's that juxtaposition that lends the single its resonance. "Lucifer" lives at the place where light meets darkness, and mainstream meets underground soul.
Everything Now is forging its own path in pop-rock, buoyed by a DIY streak and a flair for making big-hearted, explosive songs. For an unsigned act to come together and put out something as slick and purposeful as "Lucifer" is no small accomplishment and says a lot about the general level of polish we should expect from their debut full-length, whenever that shows up. If "Lucifer" is the kindling, the album should be the wildfire. Bergen has given rise to a band with big dreams and the sound to match. Everything Now may be the beginning, but it's already burning hot.