The Lovely Eggs – Bin Juice

What’s better than a Lovely Eggs new album release? A Lovely Eggs new album that’s made up of outtakes, Demo’s and B-Sides of course. So two decades in and how do you celebrate this landmark, a length of time that most bands would be hard pushed to manage, but as an independent and releasing through your own label this is more of a fait accompli than you can imagine. Dropping this album the band look like they are saying that this is us, and this is what we do, it’s all art regardless of when or how it was made. Or they could be just saying, damn we need to do something for our 20th anniversary and haven’t got time to make new shit, I prefer the latter, it is The Lovely Eggs after all.

Now how do we go at this album, it’s not new material, but then it is, it’s not polished, but then it is, it’s fucking amazing, oh it fucking is! This has got to be the Lovely Eggs album I’ve always been waiting for, its kinda flawed and perfect all at the same time, music that’s still everything you know about this band, cutting edge, outside the box, not like anything else, of itself, shall I go on? Because it’s made up of songs that made albums, songs that didn’t, and songs that may not have made the light of day if it weren’t for this release, it feels less cohesive, if you can use a word like cohesive for this band’s music. Actually delete that last line from your mind, this is a totally damn glued together set of songs, they all fit in a way that matter to you, the listener. So we go at it by listening and throwing the odd excited expletives around, throwing pinch of fairy dust into the air at random moments, and most of all dancing like a loon when the mood takes you.

The album starts with ‘Introducing Bullshit’, how else should you start an album other than with something uplifting and no fucking messing about. ‘The Grind’ drops in next, a piece of Lovely Eggs genius, it’s their world of hard living all summed up in one song that bangs along like a steam roller. I’ll just say at this point, there are fifteen songs on this album, and I’m not going to spend the next ten paragraphs trying to tell you what they sound like, other than shitting brilliant, so I’ll just thumb through a selection for ya.

‘Eat Me’ is grungy hazy guitar stuff with a angsty lyrical punch, ’Empire Of Death’ smells of 70’s punk melodic DIY stuff. ‘(You’ve Been A) Shit To Me’ is a song that’s beautiful to listen to but doesn’t fuck around when it describes abusive behaviour. ‘Creepin’ is just a slice of psycho wrapped up in sublime beauty. I have to mention ‘Slug Graveyard’, go listen coz you need to! ‘The Voyage’ is the longest track and possibly the strangest to get your head around, but once you do it’s a whole world of magical brilliance. ‘On The Line’ may be simple and uncomplicated, or maybe not. And lastly ‘Melody For Meathead’ is very topical for today’s shit storm world. To do the sum up thing, this is an album that’s an alternative to the alternative, a place to go when you need to have your head fucked with the wild, weird and wonderful. It’s some of the best Bin Juice I’ve had the misfortune to smell!

Catch The Lovely Eggs live on their 20th anniversary UK tour that kicks off tonight at Edinburgh’s La Belle Angele, you can view the band’s tour dates and purchase tickets here and Bin Juice is available via The Lovely Eggs on their very own Egg Records and via Bandcamp and digital outlets.