EGG

Egg's self titled effort was acctually one of my first encounters with Progressive Rock in general, so this record is very dear to me. Egg didn't sound quite like anything else, the production quality was't great, but Dave Stewarts organ work gives the album a certain sound that can't be described. The stand out tracks on this record (for me) are "While Growing my Hair", "Fugue In D Minor", "The Song of McGuillicudie the Pusillanimous" and of course the grand "Symphony No. 2". The band show incredible time signature changes and they really left me amazed with their unique sound.

I will hold back from giving this album 5 stars because their are points on the album that aren't perfect, so I'll give Egg a solid 4 star rating. This album should be experienced by all fans of the Canterbury Scene.

Fans of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, especially those looking to dip a toe or two in the Canterbury scene, could do no better than experiencing Egg's The Polite Force. I quite admire Dave Stewart's approach to the organ; while it's less flashy than the likes of Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman, it has a glossy and charming element. On this record there are some bizarre tonal experimentations to be found, most of which I do not care for, but others may. Overall, this is a marvelous album and an absolute must for the organ lover.

"A Visit to Newport Hospital" The Polite Force begins with a menacing, plodding tone that suddenly morphs into smooth organ-led symphonic music. The dynamic bass playing complements the downy organ passages perfectly. There's some sparse, inoffensive vocals and occasional blasts of fuzzy distortion. The layers of sound congeal into psychedelic excellence. The main theme is one of the most amazing passages in progressive rock.

"Contrasong" With odd rhythms and brass, this is something like "Bitches Crystal" if early King Crimson performed it.

"Boilk" "Boilk" is the most glaring flaw on this diamond of an album. It is an experimental thing that opens with the sound of water. The piece proper starts off enchantingly enough, with low organ and distant church bells. Unfortunately, it adopts fluttering noises with a Mellotron tone that's pitch is manipulated in painful ways. Further directionless noises follow. Those who appreciate the stranger side of avant-prog will not view this as a failing, but for me, the album is worse for it- a real pity. "Long Piece No. 3, Part 1" The first part of this suite has a jarring and disorienting character. Like ELP's "Tank," it is both melodic and full of discord, but highlights the drumming.

"Long Piece No. 3, Part 2" The second part returns to the more palatable music found in "A Visit to Newport Hospital." There are, however, plenty of adventurous melodic twists throughout the opus. The main motif in this is fantastic, almost rivaling that of the first track.

"Long Piece No. 3, Part 3" If forced to draw a comparison, I would consider this the predecessor of "Karn Evil 9, Third Impression" by ELP; this third part has a refreshing fusion of harmonic intensity and drive while remaining compositionally sound.

"Long Piece No. 3, Part 4" The final moments of the album are a symphonic Canterbury treat, with pulsating rhythms and organ.

Legendary act of the Canterbury scene, Egg actually emerged in 1968 out of the ashes of Uriel with the same members (David Stewart on keyboards, Mont Campbell on bass and Clive Brooks on drums) minus guitarist Steve Hillage.The absence of Hillage naturally brought a change of sound to a more organ-driven style and Egg signed a contract with Deram, followed by a single in August 69'.A brief reunion with Hillage led to the classic Psych/Prog Arzachel album, but Hillage soon returned to his studies and the trio continued as Egg on the recordings of their first full-length album, the classic ''Egg'', released on Deram in March 70'.

Highly influenced by the sound of THE NICE but not leaving apart their psychedelic background, Egg came up with an album of Classical-inspired Progressive Rock with major psych influences as a more polished version of THE NICE.A couple of tracks though with aggresive vocals, powerful drumming and jamming organ versions are sure to remind of the later, but the majority of this album's legth show Egg trying to deliver a more professional and refined Classical approach on rock music.As expected the musicianship is heavily driven by Stewart's organ and piano lines, somewhat split between melodic passages, Classical adaptions and more improvised solos, always supported by the frenetic bass of Mont Campbell and the skillful drumming of Clive Brooks.The amalgam of Egg's sound is certainly the long epic ''Symphony No. 2'', a nice journey in Egg's history, offering, besides the undisputed Classical education of the band, plenty of dramatic moments, experimental beats and psychedelic cuts.

Egg's debut may sound a bit dated for today's standards but it still deserves a place in a prog man's collection.A historical piece of music regarding the Canterbury school of Psych/Prog and a must-have for anyone into keyboard-based Progressive Rock or early-70's Art Rock.Go for the Esoteric Recordings CD reissue, which offers also the pair of tracks featured on Egg's first ever single.Recommended.

It seems as if virtually every single 'Canterbury' style group emerged from either the pop-psych outfit The Wilde Flowers or, latterly, Steve Hillage's college band Uriel. Whilst the Likes of Soft Machine and Caravan would form out of the ashes of the former, the latter give birth to what would eventually become the trio of Egg. Featuring Mont Campbell(bass, vocals), Dave Stewart(organ, piano) and Clive Brooks(drums), Egg were a funny little beast, part-classical, part-jazz and all-progressive. They produced three albums during a rather brief career, with this interesting curio of a debut followed by 1971's 'The Polite Force' and, after a three-year gap, 'The Civil Surface'(notice the pun titles) which saw the light-of-day in 1974. Of the three it is perhaps the self- titled debut that proves most satisfying due to a playful experimental edge that gives meaning to much of the meandering, especially on the interlinking five-part suite 'Symphony No.2', a composition brimming with jaunty invention and quick-fire tempo changes. Dave Stewart's organ is the dominant force throughout, his juicy solo's backed by the thoughtfully-applied bass and warbling vocals of Mont Campbell, whilst Clive Brooks energetic drumming bristles away underneath giving much of 'Egg' a sonic style not unlike that of The Nice or even ELP in their more jocular moments. Like many progressive groups from the genre's golden days, Egg are probably better thought of now then they were back in the day, and whilst they have always been a cult outfit with a small-but-loyal following their singular brand of eccentric neo-classical Canterbury jazz has always intrigued those with a penchant for something slightly different. Very much the thinking man's prog-rock group, Egg's first album is by no means a classic, but it is still a highly-engaging offering that nicely sums up just what an exciting and thoughtful time it was to be a musician back at the beginning of the 1970s. Like they always say: they sure don't make 'em like this anymore.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Egg. It can be a word utilized to describe: a nurturing shell that grooms creatures and provides nourishment before their eventual initiation onto the outside world, a symbolic representation of creation, rebirth, fertility and resurrection throughout numerous religions, and breakfast. In the world of progressive rock, it is also the name of one of the earlier outright progressive rock bands on the scene, and The Polite Force would remain their grandest statement.

Egg is another of those groups formed with a determined purpose that guitars are not an essential ingredient for creating rock influenced music. By means of occasionally unleashing some of the meanest sounding distorted keyboard passages, I do find myself enthralled by the busy-ness and sometimes sheer volume of the band to not feel as if a guitarist would've necessarily improved things. For a band with this much precision and technical ability, it could have been rather difficult to find a guitar player suitable for their skill level without being a complete egomaniac anyhow.

The opening track starts things off on an extremely high note with a foreboding dark keyboard passage that wouldn't have felt out of place on a doom metal album. Being as they are, the song soon twists into a more upbeat passage combining an unusually soothing sounding Hammond with, shall I say, exotic time signatures. The bass playing is exquisitely intricate and the drummer hones in these jazzy passages with tight rock flair to keep things from sounding too much like a fusion band. The vocals are pleasant enough and the lyrics are actually fun (a sort of life on the road deal) and add charm by being neither deep nor goofy. I swore I thought I was hearing a wa-wa guitar solo during an instrumental break the first time I played this beast, but yup, it was a keyboard doing an impressive guitar impersonation.

"Contrasong" keeps the entertainment factor way up there by almost sounding like a Blood Sweat & Tears from another dimension where the term "straightforward" doesn't exist. The trickiness of this track is mind-boggling at times and even trying to sing over this tune must've required considerable rhythmic skill.

Then we have "Boilk". It's basically an avant-garde piece that at times sounds suitably creepy and even gorgeous, but at other times it sounds too experimental for its own good and results in being a drag in places. From my own experience, these collages are usually much more fun to make than actually listen to, especially if it involves listening to someone else's weird creation.

The second side is a monstrous musical journey through all kinds of cool ideas, fantastic melodies, bizarre shifts in mood and structure alike, and just general zaniness at times. Some sections are a little more lasting in my head than others (at one point the epic does veer into borderline annoying atonal weirdness during Part 2) yet I never get a sense of unrest since so much is going on throughout the whole damn thing.

This is another of those albums that perfectly captures "the year 1970" sound I'm always looking for. It's influenced somewhat by the past decade while always looking ahead to the future decade, and there's a fair hint of unease and moments of darkness sprinkled within. Check it out.

The best Egg album of the lot; they still sometimes sound like a jazzed-up Canterbury version of ELP, but the songwriting is tighter and the musical range and experimentation broader and more satisfying. The basic Egg sound is spruced up by Mont Campbell switching to keyboards on Long Piece No. 3 to trade organ and piano lines with Dave Stewart, whilst a brass section appears on Contrasong and make a good contribution to its frenetic, fast-paced tone. A Visit To Newport Hospital is another standout track, lurching dizzily between heavy fuzzed-out organ attack and more lighthearted fare, with lyrics recounting the history of Egg and Uriel. Boilk ventures into King Crimsonish noodling and manages to provide just as much tension as Fripp's own group.

I wouldn't say Egg were ever a top-tier Canterbury band - Dave Stewart in particular would achieve greater heights in Hatfield and the North and National Health - but it's certainly important to the careers of its three core members, and of their three albums this is easily the best; the debut was not quite so well-realised, whilst The Civil Surface was a grab-bag of rerecorded versions of songs that didn't make the cut on the first two albums filled out with Mont Campbell wind quartets. Four stars.

Egg surely weren't planning to become Nice/ELP soundalikes - take Uriel (the band Egg is the successor to), remove Steve Hillage, and bam!, you get your bass/drums/organ lineup as the inevitable result. Maybe it's just the Bach cover and the prominence given to Dave Stewart's organ playing that makes people compare the group to Emerson's two big bands from the era, though I would personally stress that Stewart is in no way an Emerson soundalike - his playing is less forceful and aggressive, and also less inclined towards empty showing-off (unlike many ELP albums, there's no goofy novelty track here - the lyrics might sometimes be silly, but the music is always serious business). A solid debut from Egg, even if it is a bit of a Dave Stewart showcase.

Egg's best effort is a wonderful album of really tricky time signatures, great keyboards by Dave Stewart and wild experimentalism in the form of the universally reviled 9 minute 'Boilk'.

The opener, 'A visit to Newport Hospital' is a great tune reminiscent of Soft Machine - but is far better and more adventurous than the murky production and waywardness of the aforementioned band. 'The Polite Force' is where Egg came of age, delivering something unique and exciting.

'Contrasong' is a weird and wacky number with strangely off kilter brass instruments and drumming which, I defy anyone to drum along to in time, with its alternating 5/8 and 9/8 time signatures.

I can see why people might choose Caravan over Egg, being that they're a far easier listen, but if you want a more challenging propostion then Egg could be the fellows for you.

And then we have 'Boilk'. Poor old damned to hell 'Boilk'. Certainly not easy on the ear, but I love this kind of stuff. Structureless, with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in to create a mayhem of sound which borders on Musique Concrete. Personally I love it.

The Egg forerunners 'Arzachel' were certainly a breeding ground for this type of music. An album which I'd recommend to fans of this, by the way.

'Long Piece No.3' takes up the whole of side two. What I want to know is what happened to Long Piece No. 1 & 2. Anyway, Dave Stewart reigns supreme again in this rather odd 21 minute opus. I don't know why I like him so much, as I usually hate the organ sound, but he just hits all the right notes for me sounding like a more dramatic and important Rick Wright from 'Atom Heart'.

Some serious showing off by Clive Brooks on drums again makes this quite possibly one of the most difficult percussive albums I've heard - and that's coming from a drummer! Brilliant

Math jazz!........

Not only one of my favourite Canterbury albums (of the ones I know). It's one of my favourite albums full stop. With interesting composition as their main priority, Dave Stewart (keyboards),Mont Campbell (bass,vocals) and Clive Brooks (drums) take you through passages of dissonance and Canterbury melancholy (sometimes switching between the two within a single chord change) and executing their carefully planned patterns with excellent precision. Plenty to soak up if you are into the more challenging stuff.

'A Visit to Newport Hospital' starts off with a slow drony dirge with the keyboards sounding so mean, one could almost think there was a guitarist accompanying the group. The first passage soon gets cut off abruptly and goes into the main section of the song, filled with beautiful chord changes that flow so well together. At around three minutes the vocals come in. The song ends with the same passage it began with (only this time a little faster). Definetly one of the best Egg pieces.

'Contrasong' is next, a jumpy uptempo horn dominated song, what's the catch? It's in a wierd time signature that bounces around all over the place. It's interesting that aside from the first and last part of A visit to Newport hospital there is very little or almost no 4/4 sections to be heard in this entire album. For the most part it's odd numbers galore and quite impressive that they can play them so well.

'Boilk' is next and is certainly the low part of the album. A 9 minute sound collage that sounds like something that could have been on Pink Floyd's Ummagumma studio album. It's not horrible but compared to the other tracks it ruins what would otherwise be a 5 star album. Anyway after the 9 minutes of not much, it moves on to the sidelong.......

'Long Piece no3' Part 1: all I have to say is, imagine trying to memorise this, I mean all those abrupt pauses, notes skipping and adding beats everywhere. DAMN! sounds good though. Part 2: great melodies to be found throughout, each pattern works really well. More melodic than the previous part and serves as a good segue from the frantic randomness of part 1 Part 3: much like the previous part, great psychedelic freak out tone generator jam at the end. Part 4:or the frantic finish as it could alternatively be called. A good finish to the album.

Overall an interesting and enjoyable album that should be up there with the major Canterbury albums.

Complex, Uneven Feast of Canterbury Prog

I have a love-hate relationship with Canterbury scene music. The melodic and atmospheric side of jazz-fusion has always appealed to me, and Canterbury is based on that sound. However, Canterbury is also characterized by whimsy/silliness (which only occasionally works for me), avant-garde lite ventures (yuk), and usually weak vocals. As a result, my favorite bands in the genre skirt the edges of the typical sound. Egg is one of these. One of the most complex bands ever, the band pulls off some of the best odd-time signature grooves ever. Dave Stewart is perhaps my favorite keyboard player in all of prog (quite a feat) and his use of distortion matches any fuzz guitar for intensity. Egg was basically the continuation of the band Uriel after the departure of Steve Hillage. However, Uriel (and their album Arzachel)'s work didn't forshadow the complexity that would come later, and only with the phenomenal Khan album is the Hillage / Stewart combo able to blossom into a true masterpiece.

My love of the Khan album and Stewart's work is what led me further into Stewart's catalog, and THE POLITE FORCE is probably my favorite among some very impressive work that includes the Canterbury core bands National Health and Hatfield of the North. The album is a little uneven, with some blazing high moments and one long off-putting side distraction. It's worth a track-by-track.

1. A Visit to Newport Hospital - This song is the most typically Canterbury, but features a massive distorted riff that other reviewers have compared to Black Sabbath. I wouldn't go that far, but it opens the album in intense fashion before giving the listener a break with a lightly sung memoir of the band's early days. This is a solid song but what really appeals to me about this album comes later.

2. Contrasong - this piece gets mixed reviews as it is trying so hard to be complex. I think all agree that it's amazing how well the band pulls this off. It matches anything Gentle Giant ever composed in ambition. I for one love complexity for complexity's sake and so this song works for me. The vocals function as another instrument, and horns also weave in an out of the mix. Great complex prog.

3. Boilk - Canterbury avant-garde, though not quite so "lite" as some other bands. My tolerance for this kind of music is limited and frankly I rarely finish this "song." Listening a bit more carefully for this review, there are some interesting parts. But nine minutes of free form, often noisy, exploration just isn't my cup of tea. Without this piece (which is a large proportion of the album) I might have been tempted to give this disc 5 stars.

4. Long Piece # 3 - the payoff. This instrumental composition starts with Stewart's distorted organ playing odd-time lines, creating an off-kilter, dark mood. The parts are composed enough to remind one of Univers Zero styled chamber rock in places. The piece is divided in 4 parts, with the second being the most prototypically Canterbury in sound. There are some more avant elements, but they are kept in short bites, and seem relevant to the overall ebb and flow of the song. While the drumming and bass playing are dextrous and navigate the odd times with ease, it is Stewart who gets to shine most brilliantly. His varying sounds are combined brilliantly and his note choice is always simulataneously tasty and challenging. Part #3 is perhaps the best piece of composition on the album, a serpiginous romp at higher tempo. Part #4 is more of a groove / psychedelic jam, though still in odd time.

Bottom Line: Mainly instrumental, dark and complex organ driven Canterbury prog. Very good but too uneven to reach masterpiece level.