Ego Tripping at the Gates of Heaven with The Trippers

Once again, I was made very, very happy by Egotrippi’s latest awesome live gig. They performed under the secret name The Trippers, which they usually do for a couple of times before starting an official tour. As usual, the gig was very long, and they played every song from their new album (probably except for Purple, a short instrumental interlude).

It was so amazing. The band plays extremely well together, and when they have so many wonderful, melodic, harmonic, and sentimental songs it’s such a joy to listen to them. It’s also always a huge thrill to see so many people enjoying melodic pop rock. Egotrippi is brilliant because they are one of the very few domestic powerpop acts ever to gain some sort of mainstream success in Finland. Thanks to Egotrippi there are thousands of Finns today listening to powerpop – not all of them probably realize they are listening to music called powerpop but it’s not much of a problem..

I’ve been a fan of Egotrippi for over five years which isn’t very long compared to the group’s age – they started in the early 90s. My enthusiasm level towards this band has varied quite a lot during that time, but I really feel I’m starting to get into the spirit of their music again.

The group’s new album is out now. It’s called Maailmanloppua odotellessa (Waiting for World’s End) and it’s their seventh and most folky album so far. Egotrippi used to be known for fun power pop songs that had clever, quirky and relatively tongue-in-cheek lyrics but they’re now making a lot more serious songs – with the high melodic quality and emotionalism remaining, or course. The album often deals with melancholic subjects but does it in a happy way, even a bit humorously.

Here’s Egotrippi’s latest music video Valssi, directed by movie director Aku Louhimies.


Egotrippi at MySpace