On third album Always With Me, Orlando Tobias Edward Higginbottom (aka TEED, fka Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs) is in a reflective mood. As the evenings get darker and the instinct to hibernate becomes more pronounced with each passing year, it’s not uncommon to look back on the past 12 months to assess any progress relating to promises we loosely made ourselves this time last year. For TEED, though, the reflection goes back to his formative years – adolescent longing, unrequited love, and isolation are central themes here – and the album conjures up imagery of scorched soil and dreamy sunsets. It has a late summer feel to it overall, so for it to be released in December feels more than a little strange.
2022’s glorious When the Lights Go revelled and wallowed in its musical influences with early 80s Prince and the Minneapolis Sound being key, while its follow up is clearly an attempt to write a mature, somewhat austere record that’s more emotionally driven than dancefloor pleasing. Lyrical storytelling and beats are not mutually exclusive, of course, but unfortunately for TEED they seem to be fairly dichotomous options. Always With Me hits the right buttons when it’s not trying to be too self-aware. Like the moody boy in the corner of the party seeking attention by standing alone (we all know people like this, friends), the album is too busy at times trying to not fit in. The result is a mish-mash of formulaic pop tunes, undeniably lovely melodies, but a production that far too often sucks the energy out of the songs. TEED exists in the same aural territory as artists such as Caribou, but there’s no edge here when it’s really needed to elevate Always With Me.
There are some highs on the record, though. “In Darkness” is a propulsive, carefully tailored track which conjures up images of sunsets and late night drives while “The Echo” has a slight psychedelic edge underpinned by a high tempo minimalist beat. The track ascends confidently to what promises to be a great drop, but it manages to somehow miss its mark and not quite reach the giddy stratosphere that the build up promises. There’s a Beacoup Fish era Underworld feel to it, without the angular urgency of that masterpiece. This is the main gripe about Always With Me – it’s almost a very good record, but it’s too timid in places where it should be swaggering.
“Ascent” is the album’s high point. It doesn’t tread over well worn ground, and it feels genuinely fresh in TEED’s catalogue. The shuffling drum beat and spiralling keyboard lines feel both warm and ethereal, a hypnopompic mood that feels more human than the rest of the album put together. Where some of the tracks on Always With Me are let down by slightly derivative writing and arrangements that are hardly inspiring, on “Ascent” TEED hits the sweet spot.
Knowingly or otherwise, there’s a Boards of Canada influence to the lush intro of the album’s title track, which drifts into skittish beats akin to some Rephlex Records acts of the 90s but without the manic wonder or bravery to go full tilt skewed. It’s clear that the best tracks on the album are those where Higginbottom tries to gamble a little, to shift away from a slightly coffee table-centric, unfulfilling form of bourgeois house music. There’s a fear that the kind of people who’ll really buy into Always With Me are the types with ornate signs in their dining rooms that say ‘EAT’ or they’ll have a wood carving of ‘LOVE’ hanging somewhere random like a hallway. Yeah, those types.
The vocal tracks on the record (and they are numerous) too easily blend into one another and there’s rarely anything to really sink your teeth into in order to separate them. “Rekt” has some great bass work towards the end, but the production is so flat it’s easy to miss it, while “Piece of Me” and “Come Tonight” are pleasant but almost instantly forgettable.
The last track “Start Again” is a total outlier on the record. It’s a minimalist soundscape, and it’s gorgeous. It promises a potential future of rewarding film soundtrack composition and a more meditative musical direction, and it would be welcome.
Overall, it’s difficult to not feel a little disappointed by how emotionally neutral much of Always With Me is. For an album about core memories, there’s little by way of raw emotion going on, instead it feels more like an adaptation of a life rather than a personal memoir.
