The American producer has ended up as a victim of his own success in recent years, being at the helm for some of the biggest albums from the likes of Lana Del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, St. Vincent, Lorde, Sabrina Carpenter, The 1975, and of course, Taylor Swift. However, his inescapability forced a regression in the public consciousness from the epitome of indie-pop cool to Anthony Fantano bogeyman and perennial ruiner of all things good. It brings to mind Timbaland’s similarly dominant influence on pop and R&B during the 2000s.
Naturally, the fortunes of Antonoff’s Bleachers – now on their fifth record – rose in tandem with the increasing stock of his work as a producer. With their previous record, there was a sense the band were coasting on their deserved surge in popularity. The self-titled effort felt like a reined-in victory lap rather than an enticing expansion of the freewheeling repertoire established on 2021’s excellent Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night. On Everyone For Ten Minutes, there’s very little to suggest this isn’t the case here either.
All the usual touchstones are clear and present: heaps of noodling saxophones, a near-constant reverence for Springsteen circa The River and Tunnel Of Love,
lush, decorative walls of sound, and Antonoff’s lo-fi vocals ensure all
the prerequisites are met. Closer “Upstairs at Els” fizzes with
infectious energy, “You Forever” builds to an undeniably affecting
crescendo, and “Take You Out Tonight” embraces some much-needed
weirdness during its thrillingly loose intro even if it quickly devolves
into a much less compelling iteration of “How Dare You Want More”. The
problem is we’ve heard all this many times before and it’s as though the
band have exhausted all the possibilities from their current sound.
Ultimately, Everyone For Ten Minutes doesn’t do
enough to differentiate itself from the band’s previous outings. Despite
some lovely, refreshing variations sprinkled throughout – like the
atmospheric slow burn of opener “Sideways” – this is largely the sound
of Antonoff planted firmly in his comfort zone. That's not necessarily a
bad thing – there are no clunkers here – but he's written better songs
with more daring and dynamic arrangements before. Considering the
ambition of some of the artists he's produced over the past decade, it’s
a shame that spirit has failed to transfer to his work with Bleachers
on an album that’s arguably their least essential to date.
