Two Albums By The Enid

 

THROUGH HALLS OF MIRRORS 

Album Review of: 

‘DUST’ 

by THE ENID 

(2016, Operation Seraphim/ Vibe Led) 

 www.theenid.co.uk

If Punk meant anything, it was do your own thing, on your own terms. Robert John Godfrey might have launched the Enid’s unlikely Prog-on-stilts symphonic-Rock during the 1976 turmoil, but his intense persistence of vision guided the seven-piece group beyond its lapsed big-label period into admirably self-sufficient fan-funding as radical as anything in Mohawk and ripped leather. ‘Dust’, the third part of an album-trilogy, fades in through murmurations that tingle like ghosts gliding up and down the spine, into a masterclass in guilty pleasures, high-end pomp and rich cinematic orchestration. Bohemian rhapsodies ricochet around your headphones, terrific textures where Stravinsky strings swoon and Jason Ducker’s lead guitar glistens appealingly while Joe Payne’s smooth rangy five-octave voice effortlessly dives into mind-tunnelling tunes and arrangements of labyrinthine classicism. Bitingly beautiful gauzy melodies, both brittle and complex, are spliced and diced into crescendos and jittery choral choruses you need Google-Earth to navigate. And if the libretto of the seven tracks spread across forty-three lavish minutes tend to bland emotive platitudes about illusion and love born of fire, then that’s exactly what the Enid audience needs. For they do their own very unique thing, on their own terms. 

Published in: 

‘R2: ROCK ‘N’ REEL Vol.2 no.57’ 

(UK – May/June 2016) 

Album Review of: 

‘LIVE AT LOUGHBOROUGH TOWN HALL, 1980’ 

by THE ENID 

(Angel Air) 

www.angelair.co.uk 

Symphonic-Rock was always something of an unwieldy concept. Rapid-run keyboard cascades, unexpected tempo switches, thoughts that tick like a watch mechanism, both tastefully gifted yet problematic. This CD is the Enid’s full Loughborough Hall concert – admission £1.95, recorded for Radio Trent transmission, but previously unreleased. They open with “665 The Great Bean”, a cheeky pun on Aleister Crowley, as a ‘monstrosity about monsters’, saved from the brink of pomposity by the ‘redoubtable’ and ferociously-bearded Robert John Godfrey’s manic vocals, both effete and ‘a little bit eccentric’. “The Dreamer” takes the seven-piece band through a soothing pastoral mid-point instrumental break leavened with shovelful of sunshine. 

Another alleged Pop Song – “Golden Earrings”, opens with Aaron Copland’s ‘Fanfare’ that we know from ELP, then throws in a clever-clever muso-literate quote from ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’. There are two sequences from their third album – ‘Touch Me’ (1979), the elaborate “Humouresque” and “Cortege”, immaculately arranged, intelligently performed to studio-standard perfection, plus “The Dreamer” and “Hall Of Mirrors” from ‘Six Pieces’ (1980). Then the full 18-minute centrepiece “The Fand” from ‘Aerie Faerie Nonsense’ (1977) with Francis Lickerish’s soaring guitar and expansive rising and falling waves of intricately-scored light and epic deftness that bizarrely leaves the ‘absolutely splendid’ audience foot-stomping for more. This album predates the release, but not the recording of their ‘Live At Hammersmith’ (1983) set which also includes “The Song Of Fand”. Now they close – in the tradition of their ‘Land Of Hope And Glory’, with a tongue-in-cheek “Wild Thing”, emoting a camply exaggerated ‘I’m going to smack your bottom you naughty girl!’ (catch the YouTube clip of this from the 1984 Stonehenge Free Festival). Bucking trends through often unsympathetic years, the Enid nevertheless established an awkward but fiercely defiant Prog presence that gifts them a loyal and enduring fandom.

Published in: 

‘R’n’R Vol.2 Issue 96 (Nov/Dec)’ 

(UK – November 2022)