Egg ~ England

Egg (1970)

---Feb 2005

I really love the structured songs on here, some of the earliest prog rock compositions ever written. Much of 'Symphony No. 2' is pretty noisy, with lots of organ freakout. Not necessarily a bad thing, though in this case it's fairly directionless.

---1/19/2026

I thought I'd written recently about Egg's debut, but I was confusing it with The Polite Force. Not that I have that much more to add to those notes above from 21 years ago. A3 has similarities to fellow Canterbury travelers Caravan, primarily with the keyboard progressions and soft, affected singing style. A4 dips its toes into Classical waters similar to ELP. Something of a "credibility" move back then. A6 is their Soft Machine II moment, with its punchy organ trio motif, and arguably the highlight of the entire album. A7 has some uncredited mellotron for its one minute of noise. What I said above about the side long 'Symphony No. 2' remains true. When I reread my notes I was thinking perhaps the organ freakout was more of a Krautrock nature, sounding like Aardvark on their sole album. Oh no. It's just noisy. Painfully so at times. Not sure of the allure of these parts of the composition. So a real hodge podge of structured Canterbury styled progressive rock and messy improv. Legendary work, and a keeper, though one wishes for more consistency.

Ownership: 1974 Deram (LP)

1990 (LP acquired); 1998; 2//05 (notes); 1/19/25 (review)

 

The Civil Surface (1974)

---Jun 2006 

Recorded four years after The Polite Force, but not really sounding all that different or "modern". The wind quartet being the unusual twist here. When Egg are on, they create some of the most engaging music ever. Like most Egg albums, tends to lose momentum at the end. Seems like Supersister proved you could do the fuzz organ, fuzz bass, drums bit for a whole album and not be boring.

---12/28/24

This last Egg album has never been an A-lister for me. A1, A3, and B2 are your highlights, but they never go to the next level, more or less regurgitating snippets of the past. And the wind quartet is dull honestly. As genius as Dave Stewart most certainly was, this album seems more like a contract obligation work. Stewart was to regain his mojo soon after with Hatfield and The North.

Former ownership: 1974 Caroline (LP)

1991 (LP acquired); 6//06; 6/3/16; 12/28/24 (review)

The Polite Force (1971)

The album opens with the 8+ minute 'A Visit to Newport Hospital', which is a quintessential Canterbury like number. The opening chords will remind one of Black Sabbath, except as played on the organ! From there, the track unwinds into a marvelous jazzy progressive piece, with those trademark fuzz organ solos, and whimsical melodic British vocals. It is, in fact, darn near perfect. If only the whole album was like this! The 4+ minute 'Contrasong' continues in the same manner, perhaps a bit more towards the jazz spectrum. And then.... Egg completely lost their minds. 'Boilk' is 9+ minutes of painful improvisational noise. One begins to question if there are indeed Homo Sapiens in the room at all. I often wonder why bands of immense talent like Egg feel it necessary to demonstrate that they too can play like a 3rd grader on their first music lesson. What a waste of time really. This leads to the side long track appropriately titled 'Long Piece No. 3'. It's an encapsulation of everything Egg was about up until this time. Wonderful progressions, and memorable melodies, offset by tuneless improvisation. Fortunately Egg cut the excess on the latter, and the composition as a whole is thoroughly enjoyable. A fine album, stripped of masterpiece status due to a near 10 minute nasty stain. Tragedy that.

Ownership: 1971 Deram (LP)

1990 (LP acquired); 2//05; 8/12/15 (review); 6/2/16

Also own and need to review Arzachel which I might as well add here.

8/16/15 (new entry)