Softboiled Eggies
Try It Again CD UTR19
- Permanence
- October Days
- Can You Send Blame?
- Only Loved At Night
- Mama Don't Cry
- Glassy Eyes
Try It Again is a mini-LP that nestles in the gap between Softboiled Eggies' 2007 debut full-length Egg Soldiers for Tiny Creatures / Human Ear Music and a sophomore album expected later in 2008 via Upset The Rhythm. With more time in the studio, the record sees the band flesh out their customary pop quartet setup, with bells, chimes, glasses, water and a variety of organs and pianos, lending a new sense of exploration to the music.
Inspired as much by girl groups, as the glassy guitars of The Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine, the experimentalism of Scritti Politti, and the woozy rhythms of dub or reggae, Try It Again is a captivating piece of work. "Only Loved At Night" sees the band take on the Raincoats classic, while "Mama Don't Cry" showcases Janet's haunting and uncompromising personal lyrics, assessing the demise of the American dream from a uniquely private perspective.
Put simply Try It Again is akin to studying a picture of the Milky Way - afar it looks beautiful and graceful but look closer and you'll see it's made up of billions of stars, millions of planets, and countless numbers of living and non-living things, all of which are delicately balanced and hold immense influence over each other. Try It Again is as artful and imaginative as describing a galaxy in terms of the spilt milk of the Gods', making grand gestures effortlessly and with charm.
This is what the band have to say about the release:
"There are a lot of inspirations for this record. A lot of these songs were already written and planned out before we went to the studio. The only song we made up in the studio was "Permanence". I already had the chords but the lyrics and stuff were maybe inspired by the Joy Division movie that we had just seen at the theatre. Not that it sounds anything like Joy Division or anything, it's just that it was inspired in that sense. You can hear "Glassy Eyes" has the guitars of Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine which Ben had been reading about and listening to. It was an experiment and it really fit in with the song. The song "October Days" is really influenced by Scritti Politti and almost steals parts of it, but one would never guess. It's also one of the first songs I ever wrote. Somehow it also seems like one of the most complicated songs. Anyhow, the guitar parts are inspired by girl bands somehow, and Ben added the reggae beat which made it perfect. The live drums mixed with the electronic drums make it sound so strange and awesome, and all the percussion and the guitar leads just sound really great to me. Ben came up with a lot of those beautiful guitar leads, just like in "Permanence". "Only Loved At Night" is a Raincoats cover. It was really hard to do, but fun. We experimented a lot with different sounds and a lot of toys. We even recorded the water sounds in the bathroom. The experimentation with toys and percussion sounds and bells pervade the entire album. Somehow it was just so much fun doing it that it went into almost all the songs. "Mama Don't Cry" is the most personal song on the album. It's about my parents and my relationship with them. The demo is really different than the recording but re-recording it as a reggae song seemed appropriate as well, although both ways work out, just because a lot of reggae songs seem to be about the people, the normal people who have to struggle and sweat through life, and I think of my parents that way; just working class immigrants struggling to survive their whole life, who although they now have a life for themselves in terms of being comfortable, are still struggling with the relationship with their children, and are now so old they don't have any more dreams. I don't know, it's hard to explain..... I probably could talk on and on about that song!"