t 7:00 PM on October 14th, I left Falvey Memorial Library in a hurry. Apparently, the college library isn’t open to non-students past 5:00 PM. My history paper was due October 15th. I needed that library to be open. But it wasn’t – not to me, anyway – so I stormed outside, Discman in hand, rushing to put my headphones on not because I was desperately in need of music, but because it was freezing and my headphones would provide a little bit of warmth.

It was one of those typical settings for “the revelatory listen.” One of the first cold nights of the season, the wind was surprisingly biting and the sky menacingly dark, especially considering the time. And I, poorly equipped for the cold, stepped along as quickly as I could as I popped in Earlimart’s Everyone Down Here for the first time, hoping (but doubting) it would offer the soothing I was in need of. The stress of yet another late paper bore down on me like the high-pressure system that brought Philadelphia the sudden change in weather, but to my surprise, Earlimart helped lift some of the weight.

The guitars in “We’re So Happy (We Left the Piano in the Truck)” were slowly chugging along, the drums keeping a loose beat, and the keyboards entering every now and again with a faithful swirl when I realized that no other song could possibly have fit my surroundings more perfectly – and this from a song I had never heard before! Amazingly, the magic lay in the song itself, not my mood or my environment; I’ve heard “We’re So Happy” in several different places and in many different moods by now, but with each listen I’ve been shocked by its uncanny appropriateness. It’s just that good.

Imagine my surprise that night when “We Drink on the Job”, which starts on a decidedly different note than “We’re So Happy”, trading atmospherics in for a classic mid-‘90s indie rock sound, surpassed even the brilliance of Everyone Down Here’s opener. The song bounces on two notes for the first verse before exploding into a soaring chorus of Yo La Tengo-esque guitars and keyboards magnificently reminiscent of The Cars – it’s a beautiful thing, seeing indie rock return to its purest form in one of the year’s best songs.

“The Movies” slows things down once again, and provides the first side’s simplest song, a traditional piano ballad that is incredibly affecting, recalling Radiohead's “Pyramid Song”, except with calming backing vocals instead of an insanely twisted time signature. From here, the album offers two more standout tracks, “Lost at Sea”, an uncharacteristically propulsive attack, and “Burning the Cow”, as bizarrely catchy as it sounds like it would be.

The second side, unfortunately, has little to offer in comparison to the brilliant first half of the album. The exceptional variety of the album’s beginning moments is sadly lost and the album settles into comfortably mid-tempo acoustic tracks. That’s not to say these songs are boring or sub-par; individually, they’re quite good, some better than others, but when taken as a whole, their similarity makes it very difficult to remember any song in particular. In addition, their consistency removes much of the thrill that makes Everyone Down Here’s first few songs such a compelling listen.

Even so, Everyone Down Here is a very good album, one that suggests that Earlimart could deliver something excellent with its next release. Best yet, the band has shown that it can take any number of routes and reach a similarly brilliant destination – whether it decides to make the lost indie rock classic of ’96 or expand upon “We’re So Happy”’s many ideas, the result will certainly be worth hearing. And chances are, it’ll suit your setting perfectly.