And yet so dour…
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[6.00]
Sally O’Rourke: The arrangement of “Everything Goes My Way,” with its maracas and softly strummed guitar, recalls the beach. Not the sunny, exotic isles of most pop songs, but a middling all-inclusive resort, where the seasonally-hired house band plugs through sets every Wednesday through Sunday at 3, 6 and 9 p.m. The song continues “The Bay”‘s fixation with shabby holiday glamour, but this time around there’s no killer bassline to win over anyone not buying The English Riviera‘s concept. What “Everything Goes My Way” does have going for it are Roxanne Clifford’s intentionally blank vocals to complicate any attempt at easy interpretation. Is she greeting the return of her boyfriend with sarcasm, or is her genuine pleasure at having him back just muted by the town’s depressed atmosphere? There’s really no need for the song to be a duet, but like the track’s overall gloominess, I’ll just blame it on the concept album.
[7]
Rebecca Toennessen: The English Riviera is a slow-burning addiction of an album – the soothing bass thumping along to sinister lyrics sung tweely and unironically. “Everything Goes My Way” is less about the stifling nature of Devon, but the sly, angry satisfaction of a lover who has spurned you returning, tail between their legs. I’m not normally a fan of sweety-floaty girl singers, but the contrast between the lyrics and the final verse sung by the resigned returned lover works to somewhat chilling effect.
[8]
Iain Mew: Such a slight, can’t be bothered shrug of a song that it’s infuriatingly difficult to engage with in any way at all. The fact that that seems to have been the point just makes it worse.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: It’s not Metronomy’s fault that the niche of lemon-wash, perhaps overly optimistic love song has been occupied for me for days; it can fit two as happily as one. What can be faulted is how the band doesn’t seem quite sure whether their song is supposed to be archetypical or specific; there’s a swoon-along chorus “and now everything goes my way,” but the data is too vaguely specific (“three weeks I cried”) to catch anyone but the songwriter, and the song never swells enough to make you swoon anyway. Nor, once again, does the male vocalist.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: “Everything Goes My Way” is calm and pretty to a fault, but they aren’t its only faults; it has none of the tension or tricksiness that made ‘The Look” and “The Bay” such compelling singles. And for all of the limits of Joseph Mount’s voice as an instrument, adding another singer drives the sound into blandly pleasant, whereas Mount’s brief second-verse cameo hints at least at something darker and unresolved.
[3]
Brad Shoup: Previous singles notwithstanding, The English Riviera has a fair share of these rickety, spare songs. Roxanna Clifford pumps out hoots and trite accusations; it gets so numbing that when she’s buttressed by staccato trumpets — a wonderful touch on Sufjan Stevens’ “The Transfiguration” — the effect is aggravatingly twee. If you wanted to know what The Bends would sound like as a break-up album, well…
[4]
Doug Robertson: Sweetly summery, with a stripped-down, laid-back vibe that fills the heart with joy, the brain with bliss and your feet with — well, not that much really, it’s not that sort of song. But if you want to lay down on your sofa, gazing out of the window while dreaming dreams of possibilities, then this, this, is exactly what you need.
[7]
Kat Stevens: This is my favourite song on The English Riviera. Its butter-wouldn’t-melt melody, simple production and unusual chords totally sum up the uneasy claustrophobic atmosphere of the album. The sing-song female vocal appears sweetly innocent at first, but in fact it’s an immature neediness that is trapping both her and Metronomy Dude in a terrible relationship. She cannot (or will not) grow up and leave the town and have her own experiences, which she needs in order to mature and lose some of her selfishness, so no-one else is allowed to leave either. Metronomy Dude tries to break up with her, but inevitably gives up and comes back, resigned to restarting the whole awful cycle. The girl doesn’t care, she loves the idea of being ‘in love’ or appearing to be so much that she’s happy even if her boyfriend is miserable — even though it’s her fault! I guess the girl could be another metaphor for Torquay (a metaphorquay?): everything’s rosy to outsiders but in reality you are being pulled backwards into stagnation and boredom, the town sucking out your energy and will to break free. You can escape it for months or even years, but something will always drag you back and trap you there.
[10]