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Review: Review from Israel
 JUDGE SMITH - Orfeas
Gonzo 2012 |
An ancient Greek hero as a Wembley-straddling guitar hero: a VAN DER GRAAF originator twists the myth with much verve and imagination.
Lurking in Peter Hammill’s shadow, Judge Smith is no less adept with a word and a tune, a string of albums and stage productions under his belt, so his “songstories” gained a certain following which is bound to grow after this, the British veteran’s third one. To see Orpheus in the modern spotlight is, perhaps, not that original an idea but to project a dilemma of an artist, who has to deliver his crowd-pleasing money-making hits while longing for creation of something, on the famous “to hell and back” anabasis – where a glance behind one’s shoulder means losing the Muse – is interesting move, indeed. That’s all theory, yet Smith shaped it in practice as a rock opera, a tag that Judge’s quite unwilling to apply, even though one can see similarities between his protagonist being unwell and staying at the hotel instead of playing a big festival and Pink in “The Wall”, but there’s more experimentation in the George Orfeas near-death experience. Great librettist as he is, Smith makes unnoticed the absence of rhymes on most of the songs as well as the melodies and recital unison, a result of speech transformation into music so gripping feel the story’s peripeties and so strong is delivery – in a broad variety of genres – which involves Lene Lovich plus, in instrumental compartment, another VDGG alumnus David Jackson on brass and guitarist John Ellis, formerly with THE VIBRATORS and THE STRANGLERS. Of course, idiosyncrasy reigns o’er the proceedings, but it’s of a tasty kind with Judge as an arresting rhapsode backed by a fantastic band who bend “Seven Yard Promenade” into a classic sax-oiled rhythm-and-blues piece in Act One and don a death metal group masks in dry metal of Act Two’s “Carpet Of Bones”, a thematic relative of “Carpet Crawlers”, and “Tear Him Asunder” from Act Three. There’s even a power ballad here, “Orphic Lullaby”, whereas “Orfeas’ Audition” rides an orchestra-drench twang. Less seriously, “Wolfman George” parodies a famous riff in swinging fashion of a Zappa canon, “In-Flight Movie” comes on in a disco inferno form, and “The Crab Nebula” glides on lounge electronica – all organic, even the Mediterranean fusion and rap of “Don’t Deafen Me, Persephone” or theatricality of Smith and Lovich duets in “Orfeas and Eurydice”. An immersive tale that’s never boring and bearing a happy end – not to everyone’s taste yet daring in its scope and fun to listen to – “Orfeas” might be Judge’s best work yet. **** |
Review: JUDGE SMITH: Another great review for Orfeas
Submitted by AJ Garcia on Friday, April 6, 2012 - 6:30AM
Review: Judge Smith review
  Judge Smith Orfeas: A Song Story Review by G. W. Hill While this album didn’t completely blow me away in terms of being something I’d listen to a lot, I was quite taken by the artistic nature of it. The term “rock opera” certainly applies, but this is even more theatrical than that. I love the story, what I can figure out of it, and its modernization of classic mythology. There are bits here that are purely theatrical and then other parts that rock. The truth is, though, those who like a continuing story with their music will love this. It’s really musical theater gone prog. It’s also very well done. Considering Smith was a founding member of Van der Graaf Generator, that kind of quality is to be expected, though.
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| Track by Track Review | ||||
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| The Bard - One This is a weird little old worlde section, like something you’d expect to hear at a renaissance faire.
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| Rundown Rudi After a stage introduction, the group launches out into something akin to serious 1970s hard rock sound. It works to more progressive territory as it drops back a bit. This instrumental works through a number of changes and feels a little like Pink Floyd at times. There’s a section later that feels a bit like Focus. |
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| Soliloquy - One Bouncy and fun, this is very British and rather like English pop music that was common in the early part of the 20th century – you know, the kind of thing Queen often referenced in their music. |
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| Seven Yard Promenade This is similar to “Rundown Rudi,” but has its own identity, too. It’s also an instrumental and runs through a number of shifts and changes. |
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| Interview - One After a little radio jingle introducing the “show” we get classical instrumentation dancing around behind an “interview” that’s part of the show.
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| Orphic Lullaby This instrumental is rather Beatles-like, but the proggier side of The Beatles, think later period. It’s quite tasty. |
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| Soliloquy - Two Bouncy little bits of music are the backdrop for a spoken bit. |
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| Wolfman George Somehow this instrumental, while a lot like the others, feels a bit more playful and light-hearted. It’s got some smoking hot guitar soloing. There’s also an accordion solo. |
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| Soliloquy - Three The music to this spoken section is much more progressive rock, being playful and fun at the beginning. Then, as the main character realizes his prize guitar (much of the interview discussed it) is missing, the music becomes frantic. |
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| The Bard - Two Here we get another of the renaissance faire numbers. |
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| Soliloquy - Four Some world music is built into this spoken piece. Still, it’s some of the most pure prog of the set. As it ends in the sound of a car crash, we realize that the main character’s day just keeps getting worse. |
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| In-Flight Movie - One Delirium or crossing over to the afterlife make up this piece. It starts with very spacey music, but then works out to energetic electronic sounds. Then it turns out to dance club elements. |
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| Orfeas and Eurydice – One Our hero seems to wind up in heaven, but it’s unclear if he’s supposed to be there. The music is very much old-fashioned theatrical textured sound. It gets more electronic as it continues. This is campy, but also fun in a real musical theater way. It’s basically a dialog delivered as a duet. |
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| In-Flight Movie - Two This one feels more like traveling music. It’s bouncy and a little funky, but also very cool. |
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| In Hell - One Less than half a minute in length, this is just a quick bit of female vocals over some music. |
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| Carpet of Bones Dark and atmospheric, there are some seriously theatrical vocals. There are also bursts of metallic guitar. There are some later sections that really fit under the heading of “heavy metal” quite well. |
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| In Hell – Two The story continues with this theatrical dialog bit. |
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| In-Flight Movie - Three This is more traditional progressive rock in texture. It’s a cool bit. |
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| Orfeas and Eurydice - Two We get more theatrical dialog over playful music. |
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| The Crab Nebula More theatrical prog, the lyrics to this talk about a lot of famous musicians hanging out together in the after-life. |
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| Orfeas and Eurydice - Three This is more theatrical dialog. |
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| Orfeas' Audition Starting with some seriously hard rocking guitar, this instrumental is a killer progressive rock jam. It works through a number of changes and alterations and is just plain tasty. After some guitar soloing later, the bass leads into a section that is almost like surf music turned prog. It’s great. This might be the most effective piece of the whole thing. |
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| Don't Look Back Here’s another that’s more like musical theater, but with some progressive rock added to the mix. |
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| In-Flight Movie - Four We have another bit of traveling music here. It’s like electronica. |
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| Interview - Two And, now we get another interview segment, starting with the same jingle. Like the previous one, classical strings swim in the background as the interview is conducted. |
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| Fishin' in the Styx This proggy jam has some hip hop scratching in the mix, but is also quite fusion-like at times. It wanders out into some seriously soaring progressive rock later. |
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| Soliloquy - Five Another spoken bit with some interesting guitar based music continues the story. |
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| Don't Deafen Me, Persephone Here we get another jazzy tune. There is a rapper on this thing. There’s some extremely tasty guitar soloing on the cut. |
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| The Bard - Three This bard bit is quite short and the guitar playing is in the mode of Spanish guitar. |
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| Soliloquy - Six This spoken section comes with some harder rocking music mixed with Latin sounds. It’s interesting and short. |
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| Catastrophe in Czecho Fast paced prog jamming with accordion makes up this one. |
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| An Announcement This is just a spoken bit on stage. |
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| Tear Him Asunder We get some seriously weird, thrashy metal for this cut. |
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| The Bard – Four The final bard song closes things much the same way as it began. |
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