CLASSICAL MUSIC AND POPULAR SONGS

Martin Orford's first solo album is a collection of light songs mostly in the neo-prog vein you would expect of Orford if you are familiar with his work in Jadis or IQ - for my part, I think the material leans more towards the Jadis end of the spectrum than the IQ end, not least because of the lack of any complex and sophisticated epics and because of the occasional AOR leaning.

Unlike The Old Road, which seemed to be constructed as something of a conscious swansong for Orford prior to his retirement from the music industry, Classical Music and Popular Songs comes across as a side project - a chance to record a few pieces developed by Martin over the years which, for one reason or another, he never got to use with IQ, Jadis or John Wetton. In other words, it sounds like an odds and sods collection - an alright one with some good songs, but there's nothing here so compelling as to make it a necessary part of anyone's IQ or Jadis collections.