If you are still lucky enough to be a young student who has the pleasure of indulging in a spot og poetry you may have had an assignment that goes a little something like this….”For your homework tonight year ten I would like you to compose two original poems in the style of William Blake and Percy Shelly. You may not simply rearrange existing prose or verse to make it your own and you must keep to the same rhyme and metre as the original authors. You should try where you can to use the same language and, if at all possible, a similar subject matter.” In the case of North-Eastern quintet, Spokes, you could, if you were being harsh, substitute songs for poems and change Blake and Shelly for Coldplay and Arcade Fire. Their new debut album, ‘Everyone I Ever Met’, could conceivably be every band I/you/they ever listened to. Whilst all music is essentially a variation on a theme there is usually still enough creative difference, still some spark of originality, some defining note, vocal, arrangement or lyric that will set a new piece of music aside from that which it precedes. In ‘Everyone I Ever Met’ there are few sparks, only seldom caught half glimpses.
The album is awash with controlled harmonies, crescendos and percussive guitar notes. The musicianship is great, the songs are well structured and composed and the production, whilst not fantastic, is at least very professional. The vocals are well suited to the songs and the mix of arrangements and treatments is by no means flawed.
