Review: My Violent Ego

My Violent Ego - One Day You'll Laugh At The Sad Saga That Was (Sometimes Records / Handwriting Records / White Birch Records)
Such a long title, so many record companies, and a long album, too. You can dispense with the first two quite easily (ignore! ignore!) but you won't be able to do that with the music, no sirree. There’s nothing egotistical, nor anything violent, about this startling set of twenty-two songs that stretch ethereal beauty to its limits. It lasts for one whole hour and goes on for eternity. Apparently this is a comeback after eight years, although the music here is all second-hand, garnered from material recorded between 2000-2005, but what material. They have produced a million dollar suit (or suite) from a patchwork of previous outings, a mix of tunes that fill your home and your heart, if you let them. This is shoegazer rock with a vision, bliss-out with a smiling face, MBV guitar meanderings with a direction.

These stripped down songs work because they’ve been nurtured, as if this duo have rediscovered them, massaged the life back into them, and then placed them under wraps... until their time had finally come - and that’s now. Make way in your collection for delights like "What If She Leaves", the sheer beauty in the voice will buckle your knees, "Sleeping Song", "Pesky Fly" (MBV new track, anyone?), “La C'est La Voix" (Vinni Reilly eat your heart out), and eighteen more slices of musical delight. Buy this, and wonder.
www.myviolentego.com
Kev A.