| The Civil Surface | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1974 | |||
| Recorded | August 1974 | |||
| Studio | Saturn Studios, Worthing, West Sussex | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock, avant-garde music[1] | |||
| Length | 40:36 | |||
| Label | Caroline Records, Esoteric Recordings | |||
| Producer | Egg | |||
| Egg chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
The Civil Surface is the third and final studio album by the English progressive rock band Egg, originally released in 1974 on Caroline Records. The band had broken up in 1972, leaving some of their favourite stage pieces unrecorded. At organist Dave Stewart's suggestion, the trio re-united solely to record these final numbers. Among the guest musicians on the album are Steve Hillage (guitar), Lindsay Cooper (oboe, bassoon) and vocalists Amanda Parsons, Ann Rosenthal and Barbara Gaskin.
Listeners have complained that the drums are mixed too loud on the album's organ trio pieces. In an article written for the UK fanzine Ptolemaic Terrascope in 1990 (quoted in Mark Powell's liner notes of the Esoteric Recordings CD re-release), Stewart explains that it was the unbending wish of drummer Clive Brooks that his drums be featured prominently in the mix, and that the other members were unable to persuade him otherwise.