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what "they" say
Suzy Morland, 18th July 2005
"As a remote acquaintance of the
band, I was a more than a little surprised when they asked
me to write a brief piece on their forthcoming release. Rather,
I can say I was a little taken aback, considering it was only
a few weeks ago I was asked (with their singer shouting at
me from the stage) to leave one of their gigs for taking photos
whilst they were performing. The fact that they asked me as
a “friend” led me to two possible conclusions,
firstly that they aren’t aware that they can seem, albeit
unwittingly, to appear to be a daunting social prospect or
secondly, that they don’t have many friends and hence
I’m a big fish in a small pond.
Since that time I have come to know the
band members a little better, and am hesitant to say that
whilst they are generally misunderstood, they don’t
seem to become any less contradictory with the time passed.
For instance, Eiger seems to be strictly D.I.Y. in its’
approach to making, performing and releasing its’ music,
but then regularly they will turn down gigs with little explanation
if the arrangements are not to their liking. They appear to
be passionate in their distaste for many forms of “underground”
or “alternative” music and fashion, yet their
own compositions are an eclectic mix of styles from past and
present. They clearly have a self-indulgent sense of the epic,
but regularly open the night at gigs and in the words of Cops
and Robbers magazine “play first and make everyone else
afterwards look shit”. Regardless of this confusing
outward appearance, I was keen to receive an advance copy
of the double EP, and get in on flip side of the coin to all
the jokes going around Leeds for so long now that Eiger’s
recording was taking so long because Judy Garland was mixing
it, or because Stevie Wonder was driving all the way to their
studio to contribute backing vocals. True enough this recording
has been nearly a year in the pipeline, with eight tracks
on show here, but clearly the work has been a labour of love
rather than a chain of unfortunate disasters as is often the
case with self financed ventures.
The recording itself shouldn’t disappoint
anyone who has seen them play live, although it was always
going to struggle to convey the simple physical power of the
face-to-face performance, in that Eiger normally plays very
loud for a band that self confessedly “doesn’t
hug the chug”. What the studio has robbed of the usual
spontaneity of the live show, it has added a warmth and clarity
in the renditions, for the first time (for me at least) showing
some of the previously missed details of the live setting.
Having discussed with the band themselves how they feel about
the finished versions, they too are happy their performances
are worthy of your attention.
Notable highlights include such moments
as the vocals of “When one door closes….”
of which, apparently, they may only ever be one definitive
performance, thankfully captured and included here; the tasteful
use throughout of bass drum played with the double pedal (as
a drummer I especially appreciated this, as its so rare to
hear this done well these days!); the stirring soul-power
of the bass chord work in a few sections, including the closing
section of “Appetising Young Love for Sale” and;
the warm timbre of the vocal harmonies in their entirety,
aided I’m told in no small part by gallons of both scalding
hot PG (Dixon) and paediatric glycerol (Calvert)
When I asked as to whether they feel listeners
can appreciate the spectrum of musical shades being employed
here without having a familiarity with some of the albums
they consider to be essential, like Pink Floyd's Dark Side
of the Moon, Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak, The Groundhogs' Thank
Christ for the bomb, or Steely Dan's The Royal Scam, their
vocalist's curt reply was "Probably".
But then if you’ve met them, that
seems to sum up Eiger, never shutting up until you ask them
a direct question. In short, if you have a short attention
span and a wide taste of rock music from the last 30 years,
then this is well worth a look."
Jonathon Calvert Lowe, Eiger, 15th September
2005
"I feel nothing but pride for having been involved
with this recording, and I commend it to you wholeheartedly."
Kunal Nandi, Collective Zine, December 14th
2005
http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=2956
Drew Millward, Tasty Fanzine, February 2006
http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/albumindex.htm
Sandman Magazine, February 2006
"After naming yourself after a rather large mountain
in Switzerland, I guess you'd have to have a rather large
sound and something incredibly bold to live up to the name.
The track titles on this, which can only be described as Yorkshire
mixture - and I don't mean the sweets - are wonderful, the
sort of track names that make you chuckle and think 'that's
kind of pretentious but so true': "Avoiding people is
becoming a full time job" and "When one door closes,
another door shuts".
As for the music, it's nutty. Metal that sounds like it's
straight out of Leeds College of Art and Design, wearing tartan
trousers, screaming "it's Chico time". It really
is that strange.
It's just hard to make head nor tail of something that sounds
like Korn after they've swallowed the Beastie Boys. They keep
trying to make their presence noticed by screaming, and at
the same time as all this is going on your three friends,
with very thick Yorkshire accents, are all sitting around
making loads of noise while playing Playstation. Hmm!
Yet, the artwork on the sleeve is amazing; a hand-painted
picture of a hand wanking and a guy covering his face up -
with the website address next to it, thankyouforcavingmyheadin.com
- so I'm not sure if the face is being covered up through
pain or sexual bliss - I'll leave that one up to you. (RC)"
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