Polite Force [Original recording remastered]

1. Visit To Newport Hospital

2. Contrasong

3. Boilk

4. Long Piece No.3

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
UK reissue of sophomore album, originally issued in 1971, from the British progressive rock act favorably compared to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. A must for all art rock fanatics. Eclectic. 2004.

Polite Force,Egg,Eclectic Discs UK,Canterbury Scene,Pop,Prog-Rock/Art Rock,Rock,Rock/Pop

Polite Force [Original recording remastered]

Average customer rating:

A Shining Star of a Golden Era!
GREAT ALBUM, SO WHY NO EXTRA'S?
Outstanding Progressive Rock
Deep Prog
Awesome Force

Polite Force
Egg
Manufacturer: Eclectic Discs
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Rock | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B0002O399S
Release Date: 2005-02-15

Tracks:

Visito to Newport Hospital
Contrasong
Boilk
Long Piece No.3

Album Description

UK reissue of sophomore album, originally issued in 1971, from the British progressive rock act favorably compared to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. A must for all art rock fanatics. Eclectic. 2004.

Customer Reviews:

A Shining Star of a Golden Era! .......2006-04-02

One has to agree with those who say that in the music industry the Darwinist law of "natural selection" reigns; otherwise, one could not explain why so much good music was thrown into oblivion. Fortunetly, the emergence of the cd format constituted a second chance for some of this good music be considered again. This is the case of Egg, one of the most overlooked band of the early seventies, but with a talent quite comparable to those that fared better commercially, for example, "Emerson, Lake and Palmer", with whom Egg is often compared, although for me each one is quite distinct in spite of being both a keyboard, bass and drum trio, and of both being prone to quote classic music passages.
For one thing, Egg has a stronger leaning toward contemporary avant garde music and modern jazz than ELP; on the other hand, they were not as bombastic as ELP were, although they show as good musicianship as ELP's.
Anyway, comparing Egg's music, comprised in just three albums, to ELP, who had the opportunity of developing a much larger catalog seems to me a little unfair to both, excellent bands as they were but with different fortunes.
Having said that, the second Egg's album (Dave Stewart on keyboards, Mont Campbell on Bass, and Clive Brooks on drums), "The Polite Force" is a more than polite show of musical force, beginning with two pieces sung by bassist Mont Campbell, the first notably executed at the level of the interplay between bass, keyboard and drums, and the second, not less well executed but shorter, with the addition of brass arrangements performed by two tenor saxes and two trumpets. And then the two major pieces of this disc follow: the excellent noise-electronic-classic piece called Boilk, which reminded me Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets; and finaly the Long Piece No.3, a gem of progressive/classical/jazz inspired piece of work.
Definetly this disc is a shining star of a Golden Era of music. Thanks to the cd industry, Dinosaurs are walking on Earth again!

GREAT ALBUM, SO WHY NO EXTRA'S?.......2006-03-10

This is almost as good as the masterful first album. Egg were truely progressive with weird time signatures, great arrangements and exemplary musicianship. While others bands playing this sort of stuff try to be as advant garde as possible (Henry cow) Egg at least were always accesible. Whenever i hear Dave Stewarts hammond work i just know it is him (check out his work on the Robert Wyatt live album) just like Mike Ratledge and Dave Sinclair his is a totally unique style and Mont Campbell is one of the great singers, powerful and emotive and a great lyricists, witty and very clever. His words to the majestic 'a visit to Newport Hospital' are brilliant and poignant and deliver with great gusto. As for the foremention track this encapulates everything good about the band. A heavy dirge like intro before going into its beautiful main theme and when the solo comes in wow-this is what made early English prog so i unique. The next track 'contraband' is way to short. Brilliant singing from Mont (he really should of sung more!) and lyrics over an incredible complex riff and a great horn solo-superb. Then they f++k it up big time on 'boilk' nine minutes of noise. There is a Bach theme incorperated but i can't find it. What a waste of time. There is no pulse throughout. Pointless. Thankfully 'long piece' is a lengthy classic in the mode of the suite on the first album. Once again consistently interesting and complex 'part 2' is beautiful. So why no extra's? Surprisingly live the band kept it pretty much straight with little improvisation (witness the 'radio 1' bootleg tapes i've heard) but an omission is the wonderful early version of 'germ patrol' which was far, far better than the lacklustre 'civil surface' version. Why didn't they put that on the end. It's a startling omission for such a great performance and why not put on the live T.V clip from 1970 (now i'm being silly!) I once spoke to Clive Brookes at a Groundhogs gig and raved about Egg. He looked surprised that i'd heard of them 'That was a long time ago' he said. It was, but it's still as great now, as it was then. Top notch stuff!

Outstanding Progressive Rock.......2005-12-05

This superb CD ranks up there as one of the finest. For my tastes, it is the best of the three excellent albums recorded and released by Egg.

Please forgive the comparison to Emerson Lake and Palmer (another progressive keyboards, bass, drums trio), but whereas they could be bombastic and pompous in their music, Egg managed to say what they needed to more subtly and with far richer complex melodies carried by Dave Stewart's always beautiful and unique sounding organ.

I highly recommend this superb CD, and it is nice that it is finally available beyond the expensive Japanese import - formerly the only way to buy it.

Deep Prog.......2005-10-08

Egg was a superlative Canterbury Prog band of the early 70's, whose two albums for Decca's progressive Deram imprint are now available in beautifully remastered form on Eclectic Discs. For those not familiar with this prog sub-genre, the Canterbury area of England produced a number of musicians who specialised in jazz fusion influenced prog, Soft Machine and Caravan being some of the better known proponents. As Jazz is an American music, the U.S. fusion bands were understandably more beholden to traditional Jazz than the Canterbury artists, who were as likely to be influenced by psychedelia as by bebop.

Egg featured the same lineup as ELP: percussionist, singing bass player and a phenomenal Hammond player in Dave Stewart, who also doubled on piano and tone generator (a primitive early synth.) Drummer Clive Brooks and bassist Mont Campbell were outstanding musicians in their own right, but Stewart is the star of the show. He was every bit as good as a Keith Emerson or a Rick Wakeman, but sadly much lesser known.

The Polite Force was Egg's second and last album save for a one-off reunion a few years later with The Civil Surface, a sort of Canterbury All-Stars affair. Egg were what I call "deep prog" meaning mostly instrumental, intellectual and "underground" yet still rockin'. These guys weren't going to have any hits or even get FM radio play, but prog lovers, especially of the keyboard-led variety, should definitely get some Egg on their plates!

"A Visit to Newport Hospital" starts things off with over 8 minutes of tricky time signatures, organ pyrotechnics and an amusing lyric about the band's early gigging days as Uriel.

"Contrasong" is a rare condensed version of the Egg style, with a 5/8 9/8 pattern (how very prog!) and a brass arrangement. The ambiguous lyric is the last on the album, as we blast off into instrumental territory.

"Boilk" is the one piece even Egg fanatics love to hate. It's a 9-plus minutes excursion into weird sound effects that latterly morphs into a Bach organ piece. This track doesn't bother me as much as it does some people, but I like way-out stuff. This reminds me of Can's "Unfinished," which I also like.

"Long Piece #3" was actually their second long piece, at least on record, but wacked out humour was a Canterbury trademark so I guess the title reflects that. This "side-long" epic is the real main attraction on The Polite Force, featuring just about everything an instrumental prog fan could dream of. Stewart's acid-drenched organ lines play off of some (you guessed it) tricky time signatures in the opening movement, with some insistant drumming. This part reminds me very much of Third era Soft Machine.

In the second section, Stewart trades off piano and organ riffs over a more conventional backing. After the crazy rhythms of the opening segment, this is a melodic and accessible movement for the first few minutes, before the bottom drops out and we float in a psychedelic soundscape for a while, with some free-form French horn lines from Campbell, a serious student of the instrument though you wouldn't know it here! The band then runs through some thrilling variations on the melodic theme which twists and turns, getting darker and rockier till Stewart expertly brings it back to the original theme once more.

Part three begins with some spritely piano lines before taking off into a fast fusion-y jam that sounds like ELP colliding with The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Stewart works in a clean Hammond riff among the distorted organ tones, and it's one of his remarkably stick-in-your-head riffs that's as addictive as pop music. Well...to deep prog fans it is! The section ends with the band sliding into tone generator-enhanced psychedelia.

The short, fast finale finds the band putting away all the toys for a flat-out organ-bass-drums jam with some wildly distorted organ sounds (how DID Stewart and the Softs' Mike Ratledge get those sounds?)

Egg will knock the socks off most prog fans, and these remasters sound great, but I'm deducting one star since "Boilk" seems to raise the ire of a lot of listeners. I personally give this CD five-stars but my high tolerance for weirdness probably biases me.

Awesome Force.......2005-09-16

Dave Stewart (not of the eurythmics) again in full but polite awesome force. surely this album is not to be missed. The music is unearthly to describe just vintage stewart on the attack.Try also his collaborations with Hillage and Caravan members.