Egg - The Polite Force (1971) LP Deram

Ever since I heard Egg for the first time, I have loved them. A three-piece English prog rock group, they are a more cerebral band than say Emerson, Lake and Palmer, less showy than Genesis and less serious than Yes - but certainly extremely talented.

The Polite Force is Egg's second record, and it expands on their first effort with better production, deeper songs and a stellar side two long epic, '
Long Piece No. 3.' It's fun and also intellectual, much like classical pieces that change time signatures and tone to keep your brain in tune and not just your fingers tapping.



There isn't a bad track on the record and each one is just so different from the next that if you listened to 'Long Piece No. 3' - the album ender - and then the side 1, cut 1 track 'A Visit To Newport Hospital', you'd probably wonder if you were listening to the same band. Which in this case, works supremely well.

Egg only released three albums, 1970's Egg, 1971's The Polite Force and a later release two years after the band broke up, 1974's The Civil Surface. All are fantastic records, cerebral and fun and inventive and very much their own thing. When I feel like listening to prog, I listen to any one of four or five favorites, but when it comes to Egg, I find that when I want to isten to them, its only them that will do - no one even sounds close.

Ten Years After - Cricklewood Green (1970) LP Deram

Ten Years After is a rarity in the world of British Blues, having pioneered a style equal parts psychedelic rock and British Blues led by guitarist and blues virtuoso Alvin Lee, who plays a style similar to a combination of Eddie Van Halen and Eric Clapton, a killer, riff laden hard-hitting blues with a tint of late 1960's psychedelia.

Cricklewood Green is their fifth LP and one of their finest efforts, coming out in 1970 and remains a powerful and driving British blues record, one I believe to be one of the genre's best and an album I put up there with Free's Tons Of Sobs.

Ten Years After were a commerically successful band in their native UK, scoring 8 top 40 albums between 1968 and 1973, arguably the best years of the band. Cricklewood Green was the bands last raw-feeling album and with their next effort, 1971's Watt, they moved in a more commercial direction.



The side 1/cut 1 track of 'Sugar the Road' is a mix of hard rock ala Zeppelin and heavy blues ala Cream. Its got a mellow, driving beat with a killer guitar sound - slightly atmospheric and loud and crunchy, like a Marshall Bluesbreaker on 7. The bass is high in the mix and very driving. It gets you tapping you fingers and nodding your head like a great rock song should.

There are a few other tracks like '50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain' and 'Love Like A Man' that have a more psychedelic feel, complete with sitars, congas and spaced out fuzz-tones, but all the tracks still part of the same album and that cohesiveness is what shines though - they are not trying to do anything but play what they want to and it shows. No mimicry, just good song writing, no matter the direction of the song.

This is my favorite Ten Years After record and one that you can find on the cheap as it was a pretty big record for Deram back in the day. Highly recommended.