The Lovely Eggs - This Is Eggland

The Quietus

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. 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. In Lancaster, weirdness hovers menacingly in every darkened corner. As the band comment, “This is where Pendle Witches were hung.” No one is ever surprised on discovering this fact. Despite this enveloping darkness, the duo have continued to present a wonderful day-glo sense of surrealism, powerfully laced by vicious homespun humour. 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)’.

But things have been changing. Blessed with a steadily improving musicality, The Lovely Eggs have increasingly hinted at a future heaviness that at one stage would have seemed unthinkable. Well, here it is. 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. It succeeds, thrillingly. Block chords shimmer in the undertone, like waking up to an Ibiza sunrise after a night of rampant hedonism. Yes, that good.

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. (Dave Fridmann, whose production credits include The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. 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. For this is music that appears expand as you listen. The real task, one senses, is to keep that fierce Northern humour intact. No easy feat, as one feels the force of this aural tsunami.

As the tracks flip by it becomes clear that Holly's suggestion that it “sounds like a chip shop on fire” is unnervingly accurate. (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. ‘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.

These are largely ignored. ‘Will You Fuck?’, the only song here that recalls their early legacy, can be taken any way the listener wishes. It’s a beautiful simple twist and Holly Ross is a singer who could squeeze humour from a funereal dirge.

This is Eggland is a relentless, heartfelt statement of intent. You wouldn’t bet against them unearthing glory from the fringe for decades to come.

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Drowned In Sound 90

You dismiss Lovely Eggs as novelty at your peril because as much fun as they can be, there is a ton of richness, heft and attitude to be found in their work. The duo’s sound has toughened, their edge has sharpened and their approach has streamlined as they’ve become more and more the most perfect version of themselves. This Is Eggland, their fifth album, is maybe the best example so far of the band they could be.

Firstly this is a heavy record; a virtually non-stop cascade of whirligig fuzz courtesy of Holly Ross’s Big Muff pedal and the churning thud of David Blackwell’s propeller drums. It’s an album that slams. Secondly it’s a work of real economy - where some write essays and jam out lengthy solos, Lovely Eggs have pulverised their sound down to lyrical and musical sloganeering. “I shouldn’t have said that! It was evil of me!” yells Ross over and over again on ‘I Shouldn’t Have Said That’, as she digs her plectrum into a two chord riff with Blackwell playing like he’s being fined a tenner every time he hits the toms. ‘I’m With You’ takes 20 seconds to find a second chord and it never gets to a third. In lesser hands such primitivism could feel inelegant and worse, boring. Lovely Eggs make it completely exhilarating. They wield their sound like a lemonade sledgehammer.

The joy in This Is Eggland isn’t just in its paired-down thump. Equally as important is the warmth embedded under the layers of sound. Anyone can say “fuck you” with a punk song, it takes something quite special to layer real charm into the noise. ‘Big Sea’ celebrates a beautiful ordinaryness under its burbling synths, ‘I’m With You’ flys the flag for community-through-outsiderdom, and even the none-more-blunt ‘Dickhead’ and ‘Would You Fuck’ feel like they’re kicking against bitterness rather than leaning into it.

In producer David Fridman, whose psychedelic instincts have added glow to everything from Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev to Creaming Jesus, MGMT and Sleater Kinney, Lovely Eggs have found a collaborator who understands that warmth, weirdness and wit can be melted into walls of queasy noise to quite gorgeous effect. Between them they’ve made something genuinely glorious. There’s nothing funny about that.

Pitchfork 70

The UK duo’s fifth album, produced by Dave Fridmann, is as good an introduction as you’ll get to their charmingly skewed perspective on the world