From the two-piece band based in Brooklyn. Egg features a tapestry of experimental noise intertwined with math rock rhythms. The band manages to weave together threads of varying lengths and thickness, resulting in a pattern of sound that is both erratic and beautiful. The drummer Judd Aderman draws the lines (none of them straight) while the guitar and vocals of Dana Lipperman fills it in with color. The sound can get really big and intense, you’ll often forget there are only two members in the band.
This is evident in the first track. In “There is No There”, we start with the question “What comes first the Chicken or the Egg?”, as we slide into a puzzling array of changing rhythms, immediately telling us that we’re not following conventional norms in this album.
The band shows its sensitive side as we move into “Screen Eyes” where a sub-theme of digital imagery starts. As the singer wishes she were a computer screen “So you would look at me”, and delivers the lyrics in a robotic staccato manner. The crazy rhythms take a backseat as the track explores its subject matter. “Where ever together / you are plugged in and checked out” she says as she vies for the attention of someone who is constantly online.
The lines blur again with the next track “Painted”. Dana sings about fixing herself up. With the lyrics “Cover your bruises” and “Secrets in plain sight”, it sheds light on a victim of abuse. Going into the bridge, the song descends into madness, the instruments collide with each other to form a garbled mix of trashy noise riffs that ends with the distant buzz of the guitar.
What I really enjoyed in this record was the interplay between the machine-like vocal delivery and the unstable changes in tempo and time signature seen all throughout the album.
There’s an example of this in “Never Forever” where the vocals and the instruments are not quite in sync, and the song ends with an eccentric outro of scratching guitars that completely goes in a different direction with the rest of the song.
Another standout is “Material World”, an ironic commentary on materialism, where the chorus “Best things in life are free for you and me” stands in contrast with the verses as it promotes “having piles and piles of stuff”.
The album ends with “Metalhead”, which describes a robotic character going at odds with romance as Dana sings “I showed you my heart / you showed me your wires.”
Overall I enjoyed this record, it sheds a new take on what is possible with the rock genre. I really like the trend towards Math Rock that plenty of artists are adapting. Unlike conventional music genres that tell a story via changes in melody and harmony, Math rock instead uses variations on rhythm to get the same effect. There is certainly a lot of unexplored territory in this area and Gorgeous blazes their own trail with this first album.