However many tracks it might turn out to have on it, it’s a safe bet that North Dakota heavy rockers Egypt are unveiling a substantial portion of their next album in making public the 11 minutes of “Cracks and Lines.” Even in its unmastered form as heard below, the track is a stomper, with the steady snare of drummer Chad Heille punctuating the sleek, classic-minded slow-motion boogie from guitarist Neal Stein and the raspy vocals of bassist Aaron Esterby. The same three-piece issued their last outing, Endless Flight (review here), at the very tail end of 2015 — I counted it in my Top 30 of 2016, for whatever that’s worth — and proffered much tonal density, but I’m digging the spacier vibe that “Cracks and Lines” digs into as it moves past the halfway point.

We’re still well in the Sabbathian playbook, but a little drift in the guitar and vocal chillout sounds right on to my ears, especially with Esterby‘s bass bouncing along at the bottom of that echoing cavern. As a first impression for whatever the next record might be called — don’t know yet; will let you know when I do — it’s a positive one, and I guess ahead of a Spring or Summer 2017 release, which is still a ways off, they don’t need it to be anything more than that necessarily. Dudes’ nod is just about always welcome by me, and after speculating that we’d hear from them in 2017, I’m glad to hear that coming to fruition. Sooner the better.

Look for more to come as we get closer to the album release, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in the near future the trio announced another round of European touring. They’ve been racking up frequent flier miles over the Atlantic the last couple years, so it wouldn’t be out of character, but they also recently put word out that they’ll appear at the Red Smoke fest in Poland this July. Could it be an album-release tour in the summer? Would make an awful lot of sense, but we’ll see when we get there.

Esterby had a few words to say about the impending full-length and other whathaveyou, and you’ll find that under “Cracks and Lines,” which is on the YouTube player below.

Dig it:

Egypt, “Cracks and Lines” unmastered audio

I think that I said a while back that the new record was done and was being mixed and all that stuff. Well, I was wrong at the time I said that. Turns out there was more work to do. Now I can say with certainty that the new album is finished and will be going to mastering next week. We’re excited, nervous, stoked, concerned, and many other things for you guys to hear it. It’s always painful to let go…haha. But, now is the time.

We’ve never been very good at promoting stuff. We’re kind of a DIY type outfit so there is very little fanfare when it comes to announcements. We’ll be sharing a tracklist and other important odds and ends very soon. In the meantime, here is a song from the new record. It’s not mastered and it’s a youtube rip, so be gentle. If you have 11 minutes to spare give it a listen. Hope you guys dig it. We’ll talk soon. Cheers.

We are extremely excited to announce that we will be playing Red Smoke Festival in Poland on July 16th. Killer lineup so far. We’re beyond stoked to be a part of it.

Egypt on Thee Facebooks

Egypt on Bandcamp

Tags: Egypt, Fargo, North Dakota, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 7th, 2017 at 10:37 am and is filed under audiObelisk, Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.