Published December 1999 (AUTOreverse) Dublin, Ohio

 

"This Is What You Get is Windham Hill with subtle Irish overtones via the violin and Shane McGowan style vocals."

 

- Ian C. Stewart, AUTOreverse -

 

 

Published October 1999 (Azimuth) North Highlands, CA

 

Efatha - "This Is What You Get"

     Efatha is a duo from Pennsylvania, apparently the Indie Music capital of the world. Scott Hertzog writes all the music and lyrics for the duo, plays guitar and sings lead vocal. The gentler half is Christie Lafferty, pianist and violist. This Is What You Get, a 17 song CD of original, Celtic and dare I say, occasionally beatnik, music is their first CD as a duo.

    From the first measure of Hymn of Solitude, you are compelled to close your eyes and peacefully. If you heard nothing more than the first track you'd be come away from this project satisfied. The viola draws its strings like the soul’s heartstring. It's truly solitude - nothing but the beautiful viola. This is a foreshadowing of what is to come throughout the album.  Solitude sets up track 2, St. Christoper's Mom, an Irish ditty in its finest form. Scott has a unique voice, kind of a Tom Petty-meets-Gary Newman style.

   Another instrumental, Memories of the Waterfall, gives a chance for the guitarist to shine right along with the violist. Here, as on the first instrumental, the violist has a style that penetrates your being, laying bare its hopes and dreams. The gentle plucking of the acoustic guitar completes the mood, a gentle waterfall into a deep pool rather than Niagara. 

   The cut, Cliffs of Moher, is as beautiful as the place itself. Both serene and exciting. The move between instrumental and vocal songs adds to both the overall mood.  There are wonderful words on Miracle Called Free. "Could it be that on this road I travel, I'm treading on thin ice, It's breaking underneath my feet, And it could be that I am a blind man, Seeing black as white, Blue as gray and red as green." It has a good chorus, and a wonderful guitar lick. This could be the definitive song for Efatha, combining the best of both halves of the duo. This song works well with its male lead vocal.

   You don't need to hear more than five seconds of Taith I Nef to know its roots. Celtic music at its best. This may well be the best instrumental on the project, with a sound that seems to call us home. Powerful, and so full of joy that it spills over. St. Mary's Street is classic Tom Petty, reminiscent of Free Fallin'. Scott gives a good emotional vocal here, once you get to it ;-). It starts out with such a long guitar intro that you think it's another instrumental. Scott comes in with a short verse, then that great hook of a chorus. This cut probably has the best chance for radio play, but stations will likely cut off the first minute of guitar. Too bad for their listeners because it's very enjoyable.

   Sailor's Jig takes you into that Kirk-Douglas-in-a-striped-t-shirt mode. Burly sailors with wind swept hair and plenty of tall tales. All it's missing is a hand-held accordian ;-). A lot of fun. The lyrics for Monkey are interesting. They are a commentary on the those who blindly follow without searching for answers themselves. The vocal is kind of Cat Stevens, almost rap-ish yet alternative, if that makes any sense. Somehow it works though :) Some excellent guitar work on Masterpiece, a lyrically obscure, almost alternative and self-absorbent song. You will like this track as it flows well and the vocal is mixed well within the instrumentation.

  Rain Fall Down is another cut with radio potential. Most of this CD is geared toward a specific audience, but this cut will appeal to all, with its full and total heartfelt sound. There is excellent percussion here, playing off the complementing acoustic guitar to create an enveloping song. Wish (track 14) finishes this project as it currently stands, a twosome, but some bonus tracks are included from their past which follow:

   Efatha's promotional material says that "together they produce a refreshing sound: abrasive guitar blended with the soothing viola that creates a haunting Celtic tone." I would extend that to their vocal talents as well. Scott's voice has that rock edge to it that is tempered here on 5 Roses by the honeyed backups of Christine Lafferty. Roses is at a higher production level and certainly worth the wait. Far, Far Away is a fun, upbeat, moving, and enjoyable song which can also be heard on the WJTL compilation, Unite. Sandbox Sculptures has a marvelous female vocal. It does, however, end up leaving you wanting more. The smart way to end an album.

   Efatha has a well tailored sound. They bring to mind what you might hear at an outside church service on Walton's mountain in the 90's. If This Is What You Get, you will be happy with it, but we are looking forward to more music from Efatha in the next century.

Paul Gentry, CMCA Staff

 

 

Published September 1999 (Narcopop) St. Paul, MN

 

Efatha Mature, intense, and unique. A Duo who together produce a refreshing sound: abrasive guitar blended with the soothing viola that creates a haunting Celtic tone.

 

 

Published September 1999 (Sonic Noise) St. Paul, MN

 

Efatha
This Is What You Get (Lamplighter Music) 

   Being a lover of all varieties of music I can relate to the destination of this album. Efatha is a unique mixture of soul and soothing sounds that you can relax to on a winter’s eve next to the comfort of a glowing fireplace. So pleasing to the ear in fact that you could find yourself enthralled by the gentle tone. This is where the guitar and viola meet, bringing a strange new sound together. - Sonic Noise -

 

 

Kspace Music Review (Kspace.com)...August 13, 1999

 

Efatha, Featured Artist
By Toni Barber, Kspace Production Manager

  Acoustic folk/Celtic duo Efatha plays homemade, down-to-earth music that doesn’t sound like it was recorded in a covered garage.
  Their songs are about real issues and real places in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the tradition of Irish rock. Self-compared to groups such as Jars of Clay and Sixpence None the Richer, Efatha has created a unique sound that combines the melancholy instrumentals of viola, bass, acoustic guitar and even the occasional penny whistle with alternating female and male vocals. The end result in their newly released CD, This Is What You Get, is a very relaxing vibe -- perfect for sipping café lattes in an all-night coffee house.
   The duo, comprised of Scott Hertzog (a Solanco High School English teacher) and his former student, Christine Lafferty, uses Scott’s passionate guitar and Christine’s focused viola to drive the music. The occasional use of bass and drums strengthen the rhythms without taking too much away from the vocals.

 

Published November 1999 (33 Rebellions Per Minute)

 

obscure music, obtuse thoughts

One charming and unexpected side benefit of running a review site is that, once in a while, some musician decides that my endorsement might be worth something, and sends me free music. This could in theory be a bad thing, since I feel obligated to listen closely to anything I'm sent. But nothing I've been sent so far has been worse than competent. I always feel a little guilty about the _merely_ competent: for example, I'm never going to write an essay on what a perfectly pleasant cross Florapop are between Jellyfish's rococo late-Beatles/ early-Queen shtick and Jason Falkner's eclectic singer/ songwriter gig when I haven't even gotten around to recommending Jellyfish (start with SPILT MILK) or Jason (AUTHOR UNKNOWN), who are frankly much more talented. On the other hand, as of today, fully six of the freebies have earned reviews from me. And for much better or okay, it's generally clear why the artists looked at my page and thought I'd care.
In other words, Efatha are the only band yet who scanned my list of favorites and muttered "Yes, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols - arrrh, there's a mensch who'll truly appreciate an album of sad pseudo-Irish folk that starts with a 2:25 viola solo". Scott Hertzog writes the songs, plays acoustic guitar at low but safe difficulty levels, and sings like a young Elvis Costello trying to be the Irish Old Bob Dylan. Christine Lafferty plays viola. On the majority of the tracks, that's it. And it's as unhurried and astonishingly graceful an album as I've heard all year.
"Hymn Of Solitude", the viola solo, is calm, pretty, and developed enough in its tune to not lose my interest in its modest time span. "Christopher's Morn", earnest and myth-spinning, could be a Cat Stevens song, especially with its bit of almost mandolin-ish sparkle a la the solo in "Tuesday's Dead". "Memories Of The Waterfall", another instrumental (half the songs are) is delicately sketched from individual notes. "Please Jesus Sir" is rushed and lyrically simple in the wondering manner of a man who will bother to be eloquent and metaphorical AFTER he's figured out enough about religion and purpose that he's sure, at least, of the exact nature of his questions. "Cliffs Of Moher" sustains itself almost entirely on one repeated guitar chord repeated in a simple rhythmic pattern, with a viola melody providing enough tension and structure to navigate the 2:08 with calm success. "Miracle Called Free" has at least two chords, and I think I'd bet even-odds money that there's a third or even fourth chord there, but Hertzog has mastered of art of extreme unspectacularness in his chord changes, like a pianist who moves just one finger and keeps the other notes steady. Paced by slow, note-at-a-time synthesizer washes, the songs plays what Mephisto Waltz might've had their roots run deeper into the soil than into the pages of Interview With A Vampire. The first hundred seconds of "Taith I Net" unfold with even more measured gravity, reminding me less of anything in rock or folk than of Forrest Fang's modern/ancient Chinese synthesis WORLD DIARY in its Debussy-ish note progressions and its solemn, reverent use of space; but then the pennywhistle kicks cheerily in, and the rest could be one of the Pogues' ethnically confused grab-bags, with first gypsies, then Joan Baez, slipping their influence into the Irish melody.
"Charades", an inquiry on social roles as masks, strums along to the chords of Blue Oyster Cult's "Career Of Evil", which is as clear an example as anyone could want of how a stolen chord change is not, even slightly, even in the vaguest most spiritual sense, a stolen song. "Saint Mary's Street" is how Tom Petty's "Free-Fallin" would've come out if they'd added a tambourine after the first verse, scratched their heads, and decided "I think that's already closer to overproduction than we can afford". "Sailor's Jig" is a jig, albeit a semi-downcast one that has to be being performed at sea, several weeks away from the next shore leave. "Monkey", pushed along by percussive strumming and actual drums, seems to adopt a lecture tone for its fiercely delivered charges that "School rationalizes/ TV desensitizes". But he's really not out for anything fiercer than a useful method for solving the problem that "we are a people full of imperfection, trust no-one/ yet we must trust someone"; and the viola is at its prettiest moment yet. "Masterpiece" could be an unplugged rendition of a Silencers or In Tua Nua song, and while the fact that those bands were inauthentic (but good) '80's Big Music expansions of Irish folk gives "Masterpiece" the same feel as text that's been translated via computer from English to Russian and back, the results here aren't funny, merely thought-provoking, an anthem delivered intriguingly wrong. "Rain Fall Down", urgent and throaty, is blessed by the most facile and instantly likeable melody of the album proper; slow it down and add harmony parts and it could be a Peter, Paul, and Mary classic.
For reasons beyond my understanding, the most immediate songs on the album are granted status as unlisted bonus tracks. All three have bass/drums rhythm section, which never even seemed noticeably lacking on the 14 prior tracks that didn't use them. Track 15's bass is eerie, just audible in a quiet (too quiet) way, and the frantic chorus is a political sing-along that edges into love song territory. The sprightly track 16, with an actual backbeat even, is a love song that keeps the world commentary unofficial: "Let my love for you… carry me far far away" takes actual listening for nuance to notice that the "far far away" seems to be the priority (or you could cheat by reading the liner note thanks to "the Teamsters and Millersville University for providing the anguish needed to write these songs"). Track 17 brings in guest vocalist Kristin Anselmo, who has the wavery yet strong and articulate leading-lady voice any Broadway show could use. At least we learn what Efatha songs could be with a real singer: very nice.
But what truly impresses me about Efatha is how they manage to create songs where whichever elements are lacking (good singing, drums, poetry, power chords, speed, yodeling) are out-of-earshot, out-of-mind. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET is a simple record, but an admirably self-contained one. Hertzog may wonder and agonize at all the things he doesn't know, but he scripts songs for the things that he and Lafferty are strikingly good at. For an hour, at least, those are the only things that have to count.

Brian Block