Sunday, October 30, 2011

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.

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