We haven’t heard from post-punk quartet Egyptian Blue for a little while, but they’ve come thundering back this week with a song called “Salt” that marks the first offering to be shared from their yet-to-be-announced debut album, which is slated for early 2022. On “Salt”, vocalist Andy Buss says:
“The song came from a series of anxiety dreams containing monotonous behaviours that felt like walls closing in. That sense of chasing my own tail. Jumping into the dark pit of the pandemic only served to heighten this
“I’d been reading this book called ‘On Solitude’ by Michel De Montaigne and we’d been discussing it on a slow ferry to Dublin. When I wrote ‘Salt’, seeing the world as a feverish dream, the book resonated with my sense that we can cover-up emotions and nervous energy with a veil of pretending to be ok”.
While “Salt” hurtles along at quite a pace, Egyptian Blue certainly imbue it with enough lyrical and instrumental detail to evoke a feeling of slipping between reality and skin-crawling fantasy. Buss’ lyrics are rife with worrying images, from “laughing out of every single pore” to “I never seem to ever strike a chord” – but there’s no time for him to stop and catch his breath, as “Salt” blusters forward with a battalion of guitars and taut rhythmic interplay. As he circles back to the same monomaniacal thoughts he seems to become more unhinged, with the sharpness of the band’s playing upped, and every time he spits “don’t wanna talk about it”, you get the feeling that he really ought to, just to get the pressure off his chest. Just when the mania might bubble over, they guide the song into a frosty dream of an outro, imbued by chiming electronics that reflect Buss’ numbness.
Listen to “Salt” below or on streaming platforms.
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