“It’s a bit of a ‘wilderness years’ album,” states Holly Ross, one half of Lancastrian DIY psychedelic punk outfit, The Lovely Eggs. Without a new album in four years, you would be excused for thinking this was due to the pandemic. While it undoubtedly contributed to some degree, it is not the main reason the egg people have been quiet on the recording front.
As you would expect from this duo, they’ve been busy on the road, distributing their infectious energy across the UK. They created their six-part TV series, EGGS TV, (you can find it on YouTube), and even duetted with the global rock icon Sir Iggy of Pop. However, arguably the biggest challenge they have encountered has been spending two hard years fighting to save Lancaster Music Co-Op – a community rehearsal room and recording studio in their hometown.
Ross asserts, “We’ve been here fighting shit and trying to defend a right to a lifestyle that we’ve enjoyed here in this town for the last 30+ years- as working musicians who refuse to get a “normal” job and toe the line. It’s about believing in something and not letting go.”. It is this attitude that oozes through their music and makes The Lovely Eggs unique in a vast sea of musical similarities.
So, has the strain of fighting for the future of an integral part of Lancaster’s creative scene taken its toll on the band? “The unwillingness to give in ultimately takes its toll. The album is kind of a documentation of that destruction and collapse as well as the strength we’ve got to get through it all. Ultimately, this is a hopeful record about survival.”, concludes Ross. How has this emotional rollercoaster manifested itself across the eleven tracks of their seventh studio album, Eggsistentialism? Let’s peek through the ovoid window…
An intro track gets the album going, setting the tone that this is likely to be another weird journey through Eggland. A grand and mysterious track, it sounds like it could be a theme for a movie production company. A short, trippy track comes to a shuddering halt as Ross shouts, “Shove your funding up your arse”.
We are straight into ‘Death Grip Kids’. The opening line clearly demonstrates the frustration the band have felt whilst fighting for the life of the Lancaster Music Co-op. This is a great right hook of proper punk, getting you energised and angry in equal measure. This will surely get the mosh pit going on their forthcoming tour. Ross’s frustration at the council bigwigs resurfaces as she scowls, “Just let us get on with it/We don’t want their foyer”. I can picture exactly what some of those meetings were like.
Holly Ross, and her husband/bandmate David Blackwell, offer up their longest-ever track next, taking us on a very different musical journey. ‘Nothing/Everything’ is a wistful, stark, magnificent seven-minute psychedelic epic (well, 7:03 to be exact). It’s The Lovely Eggs opening themselves up in a whole new way. “Nothing/Everything is the Yin/Yang of life”, explains Holly. “There’s hope and despair, patience and frustration, birth and death, the mundane and the extraordinary. It’s the magnificence of “Being” walking hand in hand alongside life’s daily grind. It is probably the longest and most meaningful song we’ve ever written and recorded. It’s our magnum opus about life.” It’s an absolute belter and needs to be played loud in a darkened room for maximum effect.
‘Meeting Friends at Night’ begins like a Kraftwerk homage but crashes into hard-edged prog rock after the first minute. “A fly lands on the eyeball of a giant severed head of a pig/I did not want to urinate but in the end that’s what I did”, proclaims Ross in a track all about detailing the unusual and everyday aspects of life.
The melancholy reappears with ‘People TV’. “It’s older than the sun, this self-repeating town/ The same thing went on then/ The same thing goes on now”, Ross delivers in an emotionless, matter-of-fact style. A wonderful floaty and dizzy electro beat whirls around, leaving you feeling unsteady and disoriented. A song that gazes at the banality of life, you feel the angst and despair balanced with a determination to keep going.
If you fancy dining on a slice of ’60s psychedelia with a smearing of The Beach Boys, ‘My Mood Wave’ might just be the song for you. It has the feel of a stream of consciousness as the vocals just keep coming at you. No happy, sing-along chorus here. “I am burning the world today/I am sending my mind out to space/Keep it out/I don’t want all this shit on my plate”, an exasperated Ross announces. As song looking at perseverance in the face of everyday turbulence, you understand the strain and anxiety they have felt over the last few years.
If a shouty sing-along is what you are looking for, you will be more than happy with ‘I Don’t Fucking Know What I’m Gunna Do’. At just over two minutes, this rapid-fire grunge assault repeats the song title a total of twenty-three times. Sing it to your heart’s content Eggheads when you are feeling stressed or confused. Possibly in a team meeting or during a TV interview if you are an MP.
Back in the world of psychedelia, we are introduced to a noisy, mangled guitar paired with an unyielding Kraut beat from Blackwell. Oh, and a retro robot voice that took me back to watching ‘Metal Mickey’ on the telly as a kid. ‘Memory Man’ appears to be another unbridled rivulet of thoughts spilling from the dark recesses of Ross’s noggin. This track is a great example of the working relationship between The Lovely Eggs and producer Dave Fridmann. He has worked with great artists such as The Flaming Lips, Mogwai and Weezer and clearly connects with Ross and Blackwell, their music and their ethos. Long may their complimentary relationship continue.
As a society, we place value on items. What you consider valuable, I may not – and vice versa. ‘Things’ looks at the subject of house clearances – people’s lives laid bare for all to see. What value do we place on their existence? Their dignity? Starting with some beatbox from Ross, it moves into trippy territory. Most of the lyrics are simply an inventory of items, such as those you may find in bin bags and skips across the country. For me, the pinnace is Ross reciting, “A baking tray signed by Yoko Ono” four times – a line Nigel Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit would be very proud of.
‘Echo You’ is an 80s electropop ballad that is brimming with despondency and anguish which leads to the album’s finale. And what a finale it is. Lyrically on a par with Kirsty MacColl, ‘I am Gaia’ may well be the ultimate song about despair, strength, loss, love, life, anger, survival and determination. The sparse musical arrangement allows Ross to pour out her heart in a way I’ve never heard before. “Don’t you fuck with me/I’m bleeding at the seams, but I’m on fire/I’ve no time for solemn wisdom/I’ve no time for television/The phone rings ten times a day/I am hurting, I am wanting/I am walking, I am ringing/I am ironing, I am caring/I am broken”, delivers Ross with a voice jumping between despair and resolve. It brought a tear to my eye and made my heart truly ache.
Gaia is a Greek goddess considered the ancestral mother of all life and is sometimes described as the mother of all, all-nourishing and all-productive who must be honoured. Being pulled in so many directions in recent times and feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders, Ross no doubt felt that she must live up to the concept of being all-nourishing and all-productive and felt close to crumbling under such an unreasonable weight of expectancy.
Whilst they may not have realised it during its creation, The Lovely Eggs have produced a grown-up album of some note here. It is full of emotion but still maintains enough of their cheeky, spiky attitude to make it sit comfortably in the realms of Eggland. The singles that were released from the album gave a glimpse at what was to come in Eggsistentialism. In reality, it barely scratched the surface.
I have great admiration for Ross and Blackwell. They are the true representation of the punk ethos, not like the nonsense espoused by that utter ballbag Malcolm McLaren. Right now, they are preparing for a tour, organising their merch, and getting ready to post numerous copies of their new album from Eggs HQ. They make music because they enjoy it, and hope others do too. They are not seeking vast wealth, just enough to let them keep doing what they love. In the corporate wet dream that is 2024, it is refreshing to know that not everyone is inspired by the mighty (though less mighty than it used to be) pound.
Grab a copy of Eggsistentialism, play it loud and absorb it through sonic osmosis. Then play it again. And again. You will keep finding new bits to love. And if ‘I am Gaia’ doesn’t create an emotional response in you, you are either dead or listening to it wrong.
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