The Polite Force - EGG***

A Visit To Newport Hospital/Contrasong/Boilk/Long Piece No.3

The Polite Force was the follow up album from the progressive trio Egg. Like many of their Canterbury scene contemporaries their music contained experimental and psychedelic elements.

“Catchy melodic riffs, punctuated by moments of methodical breaks. Some really creative time signatures throughout but, surprisingly still really accessible and easy on the ears. Still sporting all the wonderful, signature Canterbury sounds of smooth, pretty vocals and that screeching distorted sound that is featured so much.”

“The best Egg album of the lot; they still sometimes sound like a jazzed-up Canterbury version of ELP, but the songwriting is tighter and the musical range and experimentation broader and more satisfying.”

"A Visit To Newport Hospital is prog rock classic and a must-hear track. The rest isn't bad, but its simply too typical early 70s Hammond driven prog rock, mostly instrumental and rather jammed than written.”

“The trio produced music of startling originality and energy, drawing on influences ranging from rock to jazz to psychedelia to classical. The album follows the path of its predecessor with the entire second side of the original LP again dedicated to a long suite in four parts. The music is even more complex and often uses odd rhythmic patterns.”

“Despite being seemingly overlooked even among prog fans this album was extremely controversial and inventive for it's time and probably the first ‘maths rock’ album ever recorded, taking influences from Soft Machine and pushing it into new, unexplored directions. Extremely complex rhythmically but always with fine musical ideas, though quite inaccessible due to it's very experimental edge.”

“The music of Egg combines a significant proportion of dissonance and avant-garde tendencies with over-the-top technical excess.”

“This is quite an early and important album and has the well-deserved reputation of being a classic of prog music. Songs range from very complex to pure experimental maintaining a high degree of originality and professionalism.”

“Definitely not for fans of easy, safe inoffensive pop, but for those who love their experimentalism with lots of droll British humour, it's a treasure trove.”