ALBUM REVIEW: The Lovely Eggs – Bin Juice (Egg Records)
The Lovely Eggs are a husband and wife duo from Lancaster who have spent 20 years creating their own universe, and inviting fellow outsiders and misfits in to join them.
There are plenty of folk who have only too willingly become Eggheads, such is the pulling power of the lo-fi psychedelic punk rock made by Holly Ross (guitar and vocals) and David Blackwell (drums).
With seven albums and 28 limited edition singles to their name, they’re a prolific pair. Bin Juice is their first compilation, featuring self-recorded outtakes from their last album Eggsistentialism (reviewed here), and some rare B-sides.
“We had all these spare songs after we released our last album, and we didn’t really know what to do with them,” explained Holly. “They just didn’t seem to fit in with the vibe, but we’d recorded them and wanted to get them out there.”
“They’re kind of a sketchbook of songs,” added David. “They’re not polished or laboured over but we thought it would be interesting to release them. It’s why we called the record Bin Juice. These were songs we had thrown away. But hopefully people like going through bins collecting trash.”
It certainly doesn’t sound like a collection of leftovers, as Lovely Eggs albums dash here, there and everywhere anyway, and there’s some good stuff here.
The 15 tracks consist of seven previously unreleased songs, and eight B-sides from increasingly hard-to-find 7in singles spanning 13 years of Eggy goodness.
Of the new songs, the opener, Introducing Bullshit, is a full-on slice of psych-rock, with searing guitar and driving drums joined by throbbing synths.
The Grind, released as the lead single, is about escaping the 9-5, which The Lovely Eggs have certainly achieved on their own terms, and it’s as good as anything on Eggsistentialism.
Eat Me is based around a heavy riff and sees Holly’s vocals heavily distorted, while Empire Of Death seems to be a collection of phrases and comments mined from social media.
(You’ve Been A) Shit To Me takes us down a path seldom trodden by the Eggs, a very personal and melancholic song, about feeling let down by the person you love.
It Takes More Than Us is another slice of synth-drenched psych-rock, which sounds like Depeche Mode at their darkest, while Furness Mountain is a whimsical little ditty which sounds like it was recorded on a train journey in bad weather.
The Lovely Eggs’ B-sides have always been just as interesting as their A-sides, and the ones picked for inclusion here are no exception. The standouts for me are the unsettling Creepin‘ from 2011’s hard-to-find Panic Plants single, and My Dad, the thought-provoking flip of 2018’s Wiggy Giggy, about a ghostly encounter with a long-gone parent.
A big part of The Lovely Eggs charm is their DIY ethos, so it’s only natural that they waste nothing; reduce, re-use recycle indeed. This is a very welcome addition to a canon of work which never fails to delight. 8/10.
- Bin Juice is available on CD and various 12in coloured vinyl variants direct from The Lovely Eggs HERE. They are back on the road again for their 20th anniversary tour around the release date.
