Easter is like Christmas for tabloid journalists. As well as overdosing on chocolate, means that they can torture their readers with awful puns, like “Eggstatic” and “Eggcelent.”
Lancaster duo The Lovely Eggs are however one step ahead. The duo – Holly Ross (voice/guitar) and David Blackwell (drums) – have followed up their fifth album, 2018’s ‘This Is Eggland’, with another groanworthy title in ‘Eggsistentialism.’
But this, or the duo’s exuberant sense of fun, shouldn’t be allowed to overshadow the fact that they are one of the most eggciting (sorry) acts around just now.
Formed in 2006, Ross was previously part of all-female punk act Angelica before hooking up with Blackwell, to create their own distinctive brand of fuzzy lo-fi pop.
For such an underground duo the pair move in rather elevated circles, working with the likes of Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, John Shuttleworth, and Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh – as well as, most famously, Iggy Pop lending his distinctive voice to ’I Am Moron’.
And despite the duo’s lo-fi ethic – they record at home in Lancaster – they take great care over their sound, employing Dave Friddman to oversee the final sound. The New York-based producer is the man behind classic releases by Mogwai, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, The Delgados, Ed Harcourt, and MGMT, and known for expansive psychedelic atmospheric music.
The result is a mix of krautrock and psychedelia, perhaps disguising the struggle for survival that independent musicians face.
“It’s a bit of a ‘wilderness years’ album,” Ross says of ‘Eggistentialism’. “We haven’t released a new record since 2020 and in the meantime, we’ve been here fighting sh*t 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.
“But that unwillingness to give in ultimately takes its toll,” she confides. “It does start to destroy you and 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.”
This article originally appeared in the Portsmouth News.
Also chief newshound at Jockrock
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