Johnny Elsewhere explores a life in motion on the excellent concept album After Everything. Tracing a narrative path from quiet certainty to gradual awareness, the record journeys from the day-in-the-life optimism of the opening tracks to the self-confrontation found in the middle of the project. The resulting sound is a steady, tempered reflection on rebuilding and finding one’s footing, spanning from the anthemic rock heights of early confidence to the weathered, life-affirming perseverance of the finale.
Opening the album with melodic, heartful qualities, “Things Tend To Work Out” stirs with its mixture of crisp guitar jangling and narrative-laden lyricism. Like the album overall, the track lyrically compels with a day-in-the-life feeling. “I try not to wake you,” the vocals describe, its after-work tip-toeing around a sleeping partner being relatable. The subsequent meeting setting then arrives into an affirming “things tend to work out” optimism, bursting into further guitar-laden colorfulness thereafter. Coming next, “Untouchable Tonight” conjures a carpe-diem enthrallment and open-road allure, letting out “I don’t ask what tomorrow brings” while embracing the present. The title-bearing chorus struts an invigorating charisma, attaining anthemic rock heights and a daring, unbeatable display of confidence.
“Another Day” continues that spirited sense of momentum, delighting in its perspectives of complacency and continuous grey. “Everything’s where it should be, still it’s not the same,” the vocals soar, moving on from the initial tracks’ certainty into a more introspective allure — recognizing unexplainable differences and evolving situations, exuding feelings of change before fully comprehending what’s taking place. These opening tracks compel in their initial ardor and subsequent reflection, leading naturally to an album midpoint that contemplates on now-evident uncertainty. “Empty Circles” is exemplary of such, melding glistening piano and pulsing guitars amidst “just drifting through the days” and “every feeling slips away” lyricism, wondering if one’s actions are “healing or just staying out of the way” — the latter artfully capturing how the act of avoidance can become a tactic of survival in the midst of ample change.
The cathartic “See? I’m Fine” beckons to “look at me” with a renewed confidence, conveyed with more hopefulness than actual charisma — as glimpses of vulnerability show in the referencing of the aforementioned act of avoidance, particularly in regard to the anxiety-inducing aspect of pure silence: “If I slow down I know the quiet’s gonna find me / So I keep the lights bright enough to blind me.” Today’s tumultuous world can prompt some to retreat in favor of silence, while others avoid that silence entirely — since it can prompt deep contemplation and grim self-realizations. The ensuing “The Reckoning” furthers that encounter, striving to “outpace the truth” in regarding continuous motion as a tool for emotional evasion, ultimately representing how avoidance can pave the way to self-confrontation.
The album’s concluding tracks are fully satiating within the conceptual drive, embracing personal reconstruction and legitimate certainty following clarity. “I don’t carry it like damage, I just know where I am,” suave vocals let out on “Ready Now,” a fervent statement on gained knowledge and subsequent readiness to take on any obstacles and fears ahead. Album finale “Still I Thrive” then depicts the process of aging, and its aches and pains — while still reveling in the beautifully invigorating power of music. Perspectives of moving past one’s prime, though “still dancing” through it all, ends the release with affirming perseverance. After Everything is a thoroughly compelling success of a concept album from Johnny Elsewhere.
