Review Summary: Eugene, Oregon’s Surf/Psyche collective, Egotones, just blazed into autumn 2018 with their ferocious new self-titled LP. Their bid to the blur the line between legato laden surf rock and instrumental story telling makes this record unabashedly different
Those that choose to indulge in it are taken through ominously brewing valleys of sound into cascading arpeggios and swooping tremolo picking descending from the purr of a space kitty that appears to be pouncing towards us from Neptune. Complete with a tightly intertwined pulse sustained by fluid bass playing, and Jarryd Bishop’s symbiotic control of the drums, this record will move you.
In the beginning, there is Dennis Trainhopper. Its abruptness gives us a thrilling insight into where the story might go, before replacing the bright ceremonial chord changes with Tako John’s darker and more menacing lecture of fretboard stretching, minor key picking. It’s a bittersweet passage that segue ways into Michael Go Home’s blissfully delusional aura of false security and distant sounding banjo sections. It’s a song that goes from tumbling violently in the sky to gliding unbounded over pitch bending mountain ridges past the 12th fret.
As we descend further through the hazy and ever building Modesto, we touch down gently and behold the epic intermission, the midpoint of our journey, the heroic Country Western short lived master piece that sends shivers down my spine every time I listen to it, Robo Smuggler. The walking bass notes, the bend ups that hold key tonal points in the air before being brought back down like carrying a bolt of lightning from the top of a mountain into your gentle hand. I ***ing love this god damn song. The pervasive tension in it suspends itself on the sonic illusion of an Epic Western Saga climaxing into the upper hand of its reverb soaked anti-hero, before flowing seamlessly into Bogus Your Face’s slightly more optimistic reprise of bittersweet vengeance. It’s a cold wind carrying dust down the valley before settling into a guitar harmonizing ode to Psychedelic Horror of the Sixties.
Night comes and brings with it the looming and desolate soundscape that is Fade You Later. The persistent vintage keyboard sound in the background allows the darkness to thrive and casts its shadow throughout the entire track, accompanied by beautiful flashes of nuanced guitar parts and a Theremin.
The penultimate sequential duo, Street Urchin 1 and Street Urchin 2, starts us off with an upbeat major chord progression, and pastoral sounding harmonies hanging over but behind this bands quintessential virtuoso lead guitar parts. We then observe glimmers of vast sounding minor key medleys with the keyboard once again piloting our tour.
TAARGUS then waves us goodbye, and sends us back towards our perceptional dimension with its eternally fading outro still leaving a streak in our brains like slipping dew clinging to a leaf that just started reaching out towards the morning sun.
Despite containing all the ingredients of Sixties Surf Rock with superimposed guitar slides, tremolo picking, driving and unbounded bass movements, wet reverb and ride/tom heavy drums, Egotones successfully tap dances around expectations of what the reemerging genre should be presented as. Their sonic incandescence combines glimmers of an H.P. Lovecraft novel written on shrooms with Ennio Morrecone and pioneering Surf Rock legends The Ventures. The way they incorporate and then transcend multiple genres all at once is astounding, and it all seems so unintentional. This band is a murmur of greatness in the resurgence of a classic sound diluted in stagnant mediocrity. I am incredibly grateful for their effortlessly unique interpretation of such a beloved style.
