Egypt “s/t” LP

From the continually obscure Lyderhorn Records, this self-titled LP collects the sole 32 minutes (give or take) of material recorded by Fargo, ND's now defunct Egypt: A "doom", or "stoner", or whatever the fuck you'd care to call it outfit that, despite having a sound reminiscent of at least three decades ago, recorded four tracks in the fall/winter of 2004 and called it quits sometime afterwards. I think the material may have appeared on a demo or something, but the songs were never "properly" released until now. According to the label, "Egypt is inspired by and will appeal to fans of Sleep, Sir Lord Baltimore, Deep Purple, etc." Now, those are three bands that I've never been a particularly huge fan of (I don't even think I've ever actually heard Sir Lord Baltimore, I've only seen the name a hundred times—so go ahead, call me a "poser"), and this style isn't really my thing to be totally honest with you, but for what it is, there's definitely a certain air of quality here. The group was a trio, and appropriately they sounded as such—there's a lot of fuzzed out bass in the mix, and when the leads kick in, there are no rhythm guitars—and a lot of the material has that "old school" sort of doom sound in terms of being fairly stripped down, wavering between a straight up rocked out vibe (check out the majority of "Dirty Witch") and darker, more sinister atmospheres that lean towards the heavier side of things—but generally without getting, well... too heavy or anything like that. And again, I'm no damn expert on this niche of the metal realm, so don't get your panties in a bunch if you're obsessed (no pun intended) with this stuff and disagree with me. Admittedly the recording, while also fairly "raw" in its simplicity, does have a little more of a contemporary cleanliness to its warmth and clarity that prevents it from sounding like an absolutely authentic throwback—but I don't mean that to sound derogatory, it fucking sounds great in my book, totally natural and well-balanced. Like I said, I'm only a marginal fan of this kind of stuff, but these are strong songs (amped up by a pretty damn killer vocal performance) that have a really genuine kind of feel happening, and I can certainly appreciate that. If you're into that 70's-influenced kind of angle when it comes to the whole "doom" thing, I can't imagine you not being way down with this LP.

Egypt "Touch Ground" (excerpt)

It's a little on the pricey side at $16 plus shipping, but I think that's because the LP (which is limited to 500 copies, by the way) is housed in a matte gatefold sleeve with some pretty badass full color artwork across the center spread—complete with plenty of spot gloss all over the place to give the graphics a subtle little kick. It's probably a labor of love coming from one diehard to another (and another... and 497 others), and you've gotta respect that.

Get It

Lyderhorn Records