Orpheus is quite literally a rock opera, retelling the ancient Greek tale of Orfeas, the magical musician who traveled to the land of the dead in search of the lost Eurydice. In Smith’s version Orfeas is a rockstar of sorts whose ability to play the guitar is unrivaled and throughout the album you get various doses of guitar styles from flamenco musings serving as the voice of introduction to other instruments mimicking voice overs during faux interviews, it’s actual quite bizarre yet brilliant.

Judge Smith isn’t alone in his mission to reproduce the ancient Greek tragedy, the production has about sixteen players in all, each playing their own instrument, some of who formerly played alongside Smith in his 70’s Progressive Rock band Van Der Graaf Generator. It’s simply a huge production that runs the gamut of styles from Death Metal to Rock to Classical. It truly is a strange album which runs a contrast with so many different musical idea’s, like the silliness of Frank Zappa to the dark ominous theatrical side of Pink Floyd. With each tune your never quite sure what your going to get, but by the end your pretty sure you’ve just witnessed something insanely good. As always final judgment is yours. Enjoy.