The Earth & All Within is the debut self-titled album helmed by mastermind James Ellis. His wide-spanning knowledge of 90s/00s pop rock and emo has helped make this a brilliant mix of power pop/emo and alternative, creating masterful embellishments on the sounds of Yellowcard, Jimmy Eat World and Smashing Pumpkins.
The opening two tracks, ‘The Earth’ and ‘We All Fall Down,’ flow into each other beautifully with the presence of the violin and a collection of gorgeous melodies and bright, distorted guitar work accompanying it. As you’d expect of a pop-rock album, the melodies and songwriting are at the forefront and luckily, they’re the greatest strength of the record.
The acoustic guitar work is stunning and some of the smaller tracks create some of the most vivid imagery. ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ contains some of the most beautiful descriptions of longing I’ve heard and genuinely invokes angsty teenage poet feelings from a time gone by. Ellis shows off an amazing skill at describing emotions in an artful yet accessible manner that few of his peers can imitate.
While the slower tracks like ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ and ‘When We Were Young’ display a sense of light-hearted whimsy, the rest of the record can still hit really hard when it needs to and that helps keep up the already fantastic pace. ‘Can’t Wait 2CU (Again)’ could have been a Yellowcard song and no one would have questioned it and ‘I Never Liked You Anyway’ has such a breakneck pace and sense of confident intensity that it becomes completely infectious and has yet to leave my brain since I first heard it, it even manages to squeeze in a guitar/violin dual guitar solo. I could be alone in making this connection but ‘I Never Liked You Anyway’ reminds me of ‘Flagpole Sitta’ by Harvey Danger.
Overall, The Earth & All Within is a brilliant debut and shows off a lot of versatility from a burgeoning songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. It can be said with confidence that this project can go the distance and has the potential to become a beloved creation amongst the masses. Hopefully, there’s another album in the future and The Earth & All Within doesn’t just become that cult band with one perfect album.
