Splendid
Andrew Mall
December 12 2005

Few bands consider an ever-changing membership a strength, but the creative burst that Everything, Now! gains with each lineup shift provides bandleader Jonathan David Rogers and his fans with a fresh approach to the group's experimental material. Police, Police! is a reminder of what it means to make memorable music with largely uncertain circumstances.
 The album is a giant mishmash of influences. The band engages in a blues-based stomp tempered with blasts of punk in opener "Massacre At Birdshit Carwash", and "I Live In A Trailer Park" starts as a plaintive acoustic guitar-driven tune that wouldn't seem out of place on a recent Wilco album -- until it explodes with a brass marching band and choir at its midpoint. "Rocketship, In!" flirts with a softer psych/folk style -- indeed, every song owes a debt of gratitude to the Flaming Lips -- but also reaches for Bowie-esque grandiosity. Similarly, closer "Fishbowl Prank"'s psychedelia owes more to Pink Floyd than Captain Beefheart.

Rogers is clearly interested in the big picture, as each song on Police, Police! will pull you in multiple directions without forsaking his larger vision. The pieces work well on their own, often morphing several times over the course of their run time, but always muster enough stylistic consistency to form a coherent album. That's why Everything, Now!'s grand pop experiment succeeds.

http://www.splendidezine.com/review.html?reviewid=113352552320424

I wanted to take advantage of the ridiculous name and penchant for punctuation by claiming Everything, Now! sounds like Iggy, Bowie! But it isn't all that simple. This convoluted crew with the neglected website, has a bio that reads like jumping into a Spanish soap opera. The situations are all laid out, but you never really know what's going on. About all I can cull from it is that some giant named "Justin" shares my affection for Keith Green. We're used to bands with no surnames, but it's not even clear who plays what on this project, not to mention the fact that they start the disc with track two. Plus also, here's the liner notes? Smart-asses.

With an album this solid, I guess you have to spin a wheel or throw pies to decide the order, and "Massacre At Birdshit Carwash" is as good as any to draw you in to this sordid world of knickknacks. The distorted blues-stomp finds the unholy marriage of MC5 and Cop Shoot Cop before splitting to hook up with Bowie in a mind-blowing Three Dog Night bridge. "I Live In A Trailer Park" gives a little time to recover into Leonard Cohen meets Filthy Thieving Bastards banjo folk that builds nicely before the bombastic Salvation Army band comes in and blasts Tom Waits out of the sousaphone. New wave synths on "Double Bath" give over to circus-space-dub, while "The Ritual" reminds us what Flaming Lips used to achieve pre-Transmissions... when they were still interested in rocking. The weak link if you can call it that, is the slowdown "Rocketship" which still manages to showcase their ability to write pretty, but melodically inventive pop. "Fishbowl Prank" begins the end with a bit of theatricality and builds it into a full-blown Alberto y los Trios Paranoias Broadway chorus of rock goodness. Though Police, Police! warrants more bandname droppings than I've utilized before in one place, it's still one of the most unique and imaginative records I've heard in years. Note perfect, drive perfect, sentiment perfect and power perfect, this is art rock of the highest order.

http://www.hybridmagazine.com/reviews/0206/everythingnow.shtml

Muncie, Indiana might not seem like a hot bed of avant-garde indie music, but Everything, Now! aims to disprove that assumption. The band's Police, Police! EP is virtually unclassifiable, running the gamut of rock genres from punk to folk to dub to circus sideshow. The most common thread in the unhinged lexicon is the sound of Wolf Parade commandeering Tom Waits' backing band. Percussion spills out of every single meter of verse; it's as if the band let a small tornado loose in an ironworks and captured it all on a field recording. This unexpected sound montage dynamic telegraphs the group's penchant for non-linear songwriting as well. On "The Ritual", '90s alt-rock riffs make the song's first minutes seem slightly not-so-fresh, but the jungle chants and tribal beats that close it out come completely from left field in a redemptive swoop to save the track. "Rocketship, IN!" kicks off like a straight-up homage to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" but gradually shifts into an almost Morricone-esque Spaghetti Western march and ends up on a barren soundscape of austere bells. "Fishbowl Prank" is pure pop-punk that blooms in a Pogues' barroom sing-a-long at closing time. It's all an uproarious experience, to be sure, and one that's throughly original.

http://www.ink19.com/issues/december2007/musicReviews/musicE/everythingNow.html

If one were to judge Police, Police! based purely on the first few bars of the second track ("Massacre at Birdshit Carwash," the first real song), one might incorrectly assume that Everything, Now! is just another noisy alternative twenty-first century rock band. But as the song progresses, you begin to notice that there's a lot more going on here. By the time the third tracks comes ("I Live in a Trailer Park"), everything comes clearly into focus. Here's a fact. Everything, Now! is a band with real depth. This band's tunes are complex, intelligent, catchy, and thought-provoking...and feature some wonderfully creative lyrics. So many bands write songs that start with one riff...and then they just keep playing the same thing over and over until the end. The folks in this band delve into more areas in one song than most bands incorporate into entire albums. The best part...is that Police, Police! is a very easy listen. The songs flow by in a deceptively smooth manner...making the listener almost forget how much they are actually absorbing. Listening to this album gives us the same feeling we get when we're riding a really killer roller coaster. The band hits so many peaks and valleys in such a short amount of time that you almost can't believe what you're hearing. In the same general vein as Riddle of Steel and The Flaming Lips but much, much different...Everything Now! is one of the best new bands around. Killer tracks include "Double Bath," "The Ritual," "Rocketship, In!" and "Fishbowl Prank." Highly recommended. (Rating: 5+++)

http://www.babysue.com/LMNOP-Reviews-September-05.html#anchor683585