![]() ![]() ![]() In “Give My Body Back”, the doll realises “there were deserts on the sea floor, mountains higher than any you’d see on land” while “Gondwanaland” gazes even further back, musing on epochs spent dividing single land and water masses into separate seas and continents. Elsewhere, vinyl scratches, glitchy percussion beds and barely perceptible tints of keyboards, guitar, trumpet, woodwind and violin combine with Knox Miller’s breathy falsetto in an immersive, ambient manner that recalls James Blake – though here applied to matters of head rather than heart. “Bone Of Sailor, Bone Of Bird” opens the album on the cusp of life and death, with Knox Miller’s musings about “dust, only flakes of skin” set to minimal piano notes and quietly puttering percussion – an example of the restricted options available following the loss of their equipment. And like the protagonist of The Incredible Shrinking Man, the journey results in a sort of epiphany of infinity which, despite the album’s short running-time, resonates long after it’s finished. It’s a satisfying response to Eyeland, shifting from that album’s lofty cosmic speculations to more earthly, though equally philosophical, musings: from sky to sea, from extrovert to introvert, from vast to tiny. ‘I’m With You’ is a call to arms, a cementing of the duo’s determination to retain a fierce outsider stance, be it in musical or practical terms, even beyond the bloated calls of mainstream stardom.As Prystowsky recuperated, Knox Miller embarked on this concept album, imagining the salt doll’s subsequent submersive explorations, which then form the diving-off points for a dozen short, spare reflections on being and nothingness. (It’s perhaps more like the roof blowing from the top of Heysham power station.) ‘Wiggy Giggy’ flirts with a Madchester/Chicago fusion and could have been plucked from a 1989 Hacienda dancefloor collection. No easy feat, as one feels the force of this aural tsunami.Īs the tracks flip by it becomes clear that Holly's suggestion that it “sounds like a chip shop on fire” is unnervingly accurate. The real task, one senses, is to keep that fierce Northern humour intact. For this is music that appears expand as you listen. You can hear both those remarkable outfits all across this album.) Here he steps boldly up to a task that must have seemed initially rather daunting. (Dave Fridmann, whose production credits include The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. To assist them in capturing this new sound-scope, Holly and David have taken the unprecedented step of encouraging a quality producer into the warm glowing fray. Block chords shimmer in the undertone, like waking up to an Ibiza sunrise after a night of rampant hedonism. This is Eggland powers in like an approaching combine harvester with the thunderous psychedelic howl of ‘Hello, I Am Your Sun’, which seems to blend The Seeds with Electric Wizard, or similarly unmatched underground offshoots. Blessed with a steadily improving musicality, The Lovely Eggs have increasingly hinted at a future heaviness that at one stage would have seemed unthinkable. One of the most memorable events in recent YouTube history was the arresting sight of John Shuttleworth thrusting forth his “sausage roll thumb” in The Eggs’ gorgeously off-kilter ‘Don’t Look at Me (I Don’t Like It)’.īut things have been changing. Despite this enveloping darkness, the duo have continued to present a wonderful day-glo sense of surrealism, powerfully laced by vicious homespun humour. As the band comment, “This is where Pendle Witches were hung.” No one is ever surprised on discovering this fact. In Lancaster, weirdness hovers menacingly in every darkened corner. A fittingly surreal birth, one might conclude, for a Lancaster married couple whose sole aim was to warp the stark realities that lay in abundance in their hometown. ![]() Twelve years and four albums have flashed by since Holly Ross and David Blackwell fell together as The Lovely Eggs, after watching two pigeon eggs hatch in Paris.
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