ROBERT JOHN GODFREY: FALL OF HYPERION

This is not an Enid album,although having said that,there are moments on this album you would think it was.Probably because some of the melodies on this record were used on later enid albums.Such good tunes as they are, i expect robert wanted them to be heard,and as this album was deleted so soon after its release i dont blame him at all for doing so. The playing is very precise and grandeure and the vocals very operatic. I personaly think this would have been a great instrumental album but is interesting for giving a taste of what was to become.Namely,the two greatest prog/art/symphonic (whatever you want to call it)albums ever.

Enid's first album isn't an instrumental album like the ones that follow this one. However, the classical/symphonic element that we know from the other albums is still there. Christopher Lewis' vocals remind me the vocals of Pink Floyd on the wall at times, but this is certainly not a rip off. This album has personality, and it's quite emothional. The compositions are still splendidly composed. For those of you who haven't heard The Enid yet, I cannot find any similiar band since The Enid is damn unique. However, you can try to imagine a classic music orchestra playing rock music or a rock band playing classic music, I still haven't decided which possibility is more accurate because both are accurate! Unfortunately, The Enid is an unknown band compared to the famous bands (YES, Camel, KC and so on), although it deserves more attention than some of those bands. In short, The Enid's first album is an excellent addition to your music collection, especially if you like your prog with heavy touches of classic music.

Work released in 1973 "Fall Of Hyperion". Solo work of Robert John Godfrey. The content is the one having to say the introductory chapter of THE ENID exactly. It is romantically classic. make good use of the piano, the keyboard, and the organ.The play of the percussion instrument is an orchestra.Vocal of Christpher Lewis is good with the performance. It is a work enhanced in music extremely. It is surprising only ability to give an orchestral music work of and skillful pure sound easiness impression that queues up with musical instruments and the songs only of this.

The Key to the Enid, a transitional moment between BJH and Godfrey's own eccentric brand of classical music, The Fall of Hyperion, titled from a poem by Keats, is a collection of slow-moving orchestral rock songs, but without the hype, primitivism, and overworn gestures of symphonic rock. Given that the form was reaching its apex at the time this album was recorded, Godfrey and his crew create a wholly new sound, and one that no one ever got close to, except for the Enid in their recordings. The lyrics are not good, however, for archeological musical purposes they are a set of paradigmic faux- medievalistic formless ramblings that undercut the excellent musicianship on the album. This album does improve with listenings, and if one can blot out the lyrics on "The Daemon of the World," the mini-suite has it's pleasures, including a real percussion solo, and real organ work. Only Godfrey truly fused classic music with rock; others appropriated textures, some technique, but little in the way of form or dynamics, or true compositional ideas.

Not the best work of its era, but truly original. Expense to buy now, but worth the price, if you are an Enid or Prog Rock fan.

Not an Enid album, but it does make sense to place it here, seeing as it's where Robert John Godfrey first tried out a number of musical ideas which would eventually become cornerstones of the Enid's sound. To be honest, I'm not a fan; whilst the Enid/Godfrey can make quite powerful music, they also seem to gravitate to some of the more saccharine and cloying elements of classical music (of the sort plastered all over Hollywood scores of old), and this album is no exception. An interesting ride for keyboard fans, but the compositions don't add up to anything compelling. Still, probably worth tracking down if you are a major Enid fan who wants to track down Godfrey's musical roots.

He may have the appearance of a college professor with his long beard and studious expression, but ROBERT JOHN GODFREY is the main driving force behind THE ENID, the Symphonic Prog band that's been around now for well over 40 years. Although this album, "Fall of Hyperion" (1974), is billed as a Robert John Godfrey solo album, it's really an album by The Enid in all but name, and presumably, that's why this album is included at the beginning of The Enid albums roster on Prog Archives. Most importantly though, this album SOUNDS like The Enid, with all of the symphonic pomp and ceremony you might expect from such a distinguished Prog-meister as "Professor Godfrey". His first album release as The Enid, "In the Region of the Summer Stars"was released two years later in 1976, followed swiftly by the humorously-titled "Aerie Faerie Nonsense" album in 1977. This solo album "Fall of Hyperion" features vocals, although the first four albums by The Enid proper were all orchestral pieces with no lyrics. It wasn't until the release of the band's fifth album, "Something Wicked This Way Comes" in 1983, that lyrics were featured for the first time. Robert John Godfrey worked with Barclay James Harvest in the early 1970's before deciding to go solo. Godfrey and The Enid have 20 studio albums to their credit, and despite him being diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2013, The Enid still continues to this day with many changes of line-up along the way. Although Robert John Godfrey has had to retire from touring due to his illness, he IS The Enid, because without keyboard maestro Godfrey ever- present at the helm, the band would never have existed.

The album opens in grand symphonic style with "The Raven". This anthemic piece of music is so extravagantly ostentatious in in all of its glorious pomp and splendour, that you may feel the patriotic urge to stand up and give a rousing rendition of "Land of Hope and Glory", or maybe the "Star Spangled Banner" if you're an American. Yes, it really IS that anthemic. It's booming, it's bombastic, and it's fantastic! You really have to hear it to believe it. This grand stentorian, orchestral symphony would have been equally at home as a magnificent finale to the album. And so, how do you follow up such a marvellous 9-minute album opener? You follow it with "Mountain", a 7-minute-long, energetic and euphonic piece of music with classical glissandos galore. Even classical music buffs couldn't fail to be impressed by this flawless fugue. This theatrical and emotionally uplifting music is like Renaissance with knobs on, where the dynamic and dramatic classical influences are even more in evidence. This is masterful Symphonic Prog taken to even more powerful extremes of classical greatness. Sailing onwards now on a patriotic wave of glory, comes the 6-minute "Water Song". You can expect to hear a profusion of grand- sounding keyboard runs on the piano with the ever-present full orchestra there in all of their magnificent power and glory.

Side Two opens with "Isault", an emotional powerful song with all of the grand theatrics of a BBC costume drama. It's grandiose and spectacular and just what we've come to expect by now from such an accomplished keyboard maestro as "Professor Godfrey". And now we come to "The Daemon of the World, a 15-minute long 6-piece suite to round off the album in grand style. Listen in awe and be prepared to be swept away by the magnificent grandstanding on display here in this powerful symphonic opus. It's melodious and triumphal with constant changes of tempo, staccato breaks, and sparkling fast and slow keyboard runs. This marvellous finale is sure to delight fans of The Enid and the whole Symphonic Prog genre generally. There's even the stentorian sound of a pipe organ thrown in for good measure. What more could you ask for!?

A gloriously powerful album of passionate majestic anthems that's guaranteed to astound and delight fans of classically- inspired Symphonic Prog. This album might be described as overblown and pretentious (just like this review) by those who aren't in the know, but to prog aficionados, this is prog heaven! Let Robert John Godfrey carry you away to a Land of Hope and Glory in this unashamedly pompous and sonorous extravaganza. It's an absolute must-have album for connoisseurs and collectors of classic British Symphonic Prog.