The Everettes
s/t

Label: Waterfall Records
Three similar bands: The Floorettes/The Jooles/The Supremes

Rating: HHHHHHH (3/7)
Reviewer: Daniel Källmalm
Tracks
1. Lost And Found
2. Looking For Love
3. Things You Do
4. Are You For Real?
5. What You See Is What You Get
6. Want To Stop
7. Never Enough
8. Words Otis Sang
9. This Is True
10. It's Gonna Be You
11. What Kind Of Fool
12. Leave Me Alone
13. Keep On
14. White Lies


Band:
Jess Roberts – Lead and Backing Vocals
Katharina Dommisch – Lead and Backing Vocals
Laura Niemeyer – Lead and Backing Vocals
Alexander Dommisch – Guitar
Mathieu Tascher – Bass
Maximilian Schubert – Drums
Olaf Müller – Baritone Sax
Markus Schönen – Tenor Sax
Timo J. Hennig – Trumpet


Discography:
Debut


Guests:
Björn Reinemer – Percussion (1-13)
Robbie Moore – Piano (1-5,9), Organ (9,14), Rhodes (8), Vibraphone (1-3), Tambourine (1,8,14), Backing Vocals (6,12)
Jonathan Lennerbrant – Backing Vocals (6,12)
Alice Dixon – Violoncello (1-3,5,7,11)
Kundri Schäfer – Viola (1-3,5,7,11)
Anna Eichholz – Violin (1-3,5,7,11)


Info:
Recording and mixing by Robbie Moore at Impression Recordings, Berlin.
Horns recording and co-production by Alexander Dommisch.
Horns and strings arrangements by Alexander Dommisch.
Engineering and mixing assistance by Sam Vine.
Additional assistance by Jonathan Lennerbrant, Turi Agostino & Michal Golabek.
Mastering by Rupert Clervaux, London.
Artwork by Anna Gusella.

Released 2020-05-29
Reviewed 2020-09-06

Links:
theeverettes.com
bandcamp

youtube
waterfall records


läs på svenska

We get all kinds of records here at Hallowed and from time to time I miss sorting out those that doesn’t quite fit our genre profile, this is one of those. As I have the principle to review everything that I start working on I had to review this album, the debut by German band The Everettes. They were founded from Berlin soul band The Floorettes who apparently were pretty popular. Five of the members comes from The Floorettes, two of the three singers were not part of the band then. It is a pretty large band with nine musicians, that had me wondering about the economical, you have to earn quite a lot to make a living for that many. In Sweden you would need to have an income of about six million SEK, 600 000 Euros just to pay a slightly below average wage to each of them, that would mean selling about 35 000 albums if there was no cost in producing them and the label didn’t want anything for the promotion, and I think they would need very many streams to make that kind of money. I don’t think they will do that, good thing that bands usually like to do their music as a hobby.

So, they aren’t exactly original, and their style is nostalgic for the sixties. I think of band like The Supremes and things like Motown and soul, and that sort of thing. It feels like a band looking backwards and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the album was released in vinyl and 8-track rather than the more modern cassette and CD-formats. I do know that it comes in vinyl but of course also in the digital download or streaming format as well as CD as I got a CD. A CD that doesn’t have a great looking cover by the way, but a decent production, and the vocalists do a pretty good job. The problem is though that it all feels very familiar and derivative, not like something they have worked hard to write themselves, but they have rather borrowed from the classics.

Pretty decent album all in all, but I don’t really like it. I find it to be pretty boring and too nostalgic, it doesn’t really offer anything in terms of novelty or really strong hit songs. The songs are all too repetitive and you grow tired with this album very quickly even though there is a pretty large number of songs, but they sound quite similar. Maybe it will be a nice thing for the seventy or eighty year olds that were young when this kind of music were the fresh and new thing, the music of their youth, but to me it seems as pointless as most other derivative stuff – and this one doesn’t even have the hits to sell it.

Now, I am not really well informed in the soul and that sort of stuff so my perspective might mean less for those that really are. The problem is though, that I think most of the Hallowed readers will look upon this album the same way I do, and in this forum it is not very impressive. I think The Everettes, like so many other bands should take a step back, look at their work from a distance, and realise that there is already more than enough of this stuff out there for anyone to find – why should anyone find this album? And if you derive your work from others, you will never be as great as them.

HHHHHHH