"The fourth and final volume of Brian’s epic songwriting project, unique in its breadth and ambition. On this volume Brian stretches into complexities of various kinds, knots and – as the title suggests - filigrees which (like Van Dyke Parks) reward repeated listening or make your jaw drop as they cross or combine genres in unexpected ways - or take sudden turns, or skip through passages of instrumental or lyrical brilliance.

"There’s nothing out there like this. If you like your limits stretched, your expectations undermined and your brain exercised, this is for you. Impressive musicianship throughout from an extraordinary collection of participants (about 38 of them); and beautifully produced." 

"The first three volumes of Woodbury’s Anthems & Antithets quadrilogy appeared way back in 2020 (those would be Levity & Novelty (February 2020), Balladry & Soliloquy (July 2020), and Antipathy & Ideology (December 2020)), so one would figure that the fourth volume should have been out sometime in early 2021, but the entire year passed without an update.

Maybe Woodbury gave up on the idea of four volumes? I mean each of those really were difficult and complex endeavors, the pan-genre approach with clever and witty lyrics keeping the listener always engaged is not an easy task.

I just needed more patience it seems, for here seven months into 2022 the long awaited fourth volume, Rhapsody & Filigree, finally appears, and it was certainly worth the wait.

Like the three before it, the fourth volume features no less than thirty-seven guest musicians! In addition to writing or co-writing and arranging all eighteen tracks, Woodbury is credited with vocals, guitars, bass, piano, keyboards, synths, percussion, autoharp, kalimba, ukelele, and programming; but he knows exactly how he wants a piece to sound, so if that means bringing in additional players and singers to make that happen, so be it.

And then there are all the instruments that Woodbury doesn’t play, like violins, oboe, english horn, trumpet, banjo, mandolin, tuba, and drums… it’s a long list of credits, everything track depending, but listed in exhaustive detail in the liner notes.

Some of the guests have appeared on the earlier volumes, like Naomi Adele Smith, Johnny Unicorn, and many others, and some guests that every Exposé reader should know, like Bob Drake, Amy Denio, Chris Cutler. And how about this guy: Dr. Brian W. Woodbury (trombones), there’s even a song about him here: “The Other Brian Woodbury.”

If the opening nine-plus minute genre-hopper “Thesus Rex,” a constant stream of ever-changing ideas of mindblowing complexity with a variety of singers and players on hand to pull it off, doesn’t impress the listener sufficiently, then maybe jump all the way to the closer “Brief Mass,” a near eight-minute Catholic mass — in Latin, beautifully arranged for piano, drums, tuned percussion, trombone, numerous vocalists, and more.

Those two bookend sixteen other outstanding cuts that are in many ways equally impressive, like “How Soon We Forget, How Long We Remember,” “Two Halves,” “Diletante,” “The Golden Hour,” and “Murderer” just for starters. On the whole, Zappa and Godley & Creme comparisons notwithstanding, Rhapsody & Filigree is nothing short of brilliant on any number of levels."

- Peter Thelen, 14 August, 2022

"Genre: Prog rock, symphonic rock, avant-garde rock, theatrical

Highlights: Theseus Rex, The Other Brian Woodbury, We Are The Sun, How Soon We Forget How Long We Remember, This Golden Hour, Dilettante, Intelligent Life, Bad Timing, Brief Mass

For fans of: Mandoki Soulmates, Phideaux, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, King Crimson, ELP, Genesis

The tetralogy created by Brian Woodbury entitled Anthems & Antithets reaches its 4th volume with Rhapsody & Filigree. A title perfectly suited for a rhapsody and a carousel of emotions and for the charm and value of this multitude of boiling ideas that become a magnificent record.

Rhapsody & Filigree is, above all, an album with an enormous creative capacity and strongly oriented towards the theatre. In fact, we believe it can be an unforgettable experience to hear these songs performed and sung by actors on a stage. Because their structures indicate that they were designed and created precisely for this purpose. The dialogues between the different vocalists, the different emotions, the most diverse scenarios created make this Rhapsody & Filigree an authentic musical where there is space for elements that seem to come from Disney to the most exuberant prog rock, through Broadway and the Big Bands, or for Brazilian or country music.

This until closing in on a corner of almost eight minutes of a Catholic Mass entirely in Latin. For this, the Los Angeles musician relies on 37 musicians with the most varied palette of instrumentation.

Even a Dr. Brian Woodbury, a trombonist from Utah, who shares the same name and who has given rise to confusion on social media. The problem was resolved with the two sharing the humorous “The Other Brian Woodbury.”

Unmatched by anything that has ever been made, Rhapsody & Filigree is simply a brilliant record! [93%]"

- 13 November 2022

"To set the closing scene for idiosyncratic and synesthetic sins, Los Angeles’ own Herostratus struts his arsonous, artsy stuff into the sunset – if not towards the Strip. 

His involvement with various sorts of music, from songs to theater and beyond – which entailed work with the likes of Van Dyke Parks and Lisa Loeb and composing a theme song for “The Book of Pooh” – might have brought Brian Woodbury the respect of peers but didn’t make the American’s name a household item, despite itemization seeming to be an integral part of the artist’s creative method. At least that’s the way the thinking went with the veteran’s pseudo-duality-driven “Anthems & Antithets” series this platter is a last chapter and an apex of: if “Levity & Novelty” dealt with comedy, “Balladry & Soliloquy” with personal experiences and “Antipathy & Ideology” with protest missives, “Rhapsody & Filigree” has “progressive rock” written over its multiple pieces where a couple of opuses find large musical forms crammed into Procrustean beds of sarcasm-encrusted shorter cuts. All par for the course when Brian’s flying a freak flag to spread a Zappa-esque self-deprecating and self-referential humor either on a small-town scale as Gary Wilson used to do or in a big-city scope as Woodbury does here. 

So while his multi-instrumental approach, plus a few of the three dozens performers involved in the album, render psych-operatic opener “Theseus Rex” and the grand finale “Brief Mass” arrestingly impressive – the former a mini-epic telling a rueful tale of Jerry Garcia’s apocryphal progeny and throwing in organ solos, reggae passages and metal squeals for a good measure; the latter a scintillating liturgical polyphony delivered in Latin over quirky time signatures quite typical for Italian prog – the riff, rhyme and reason gel most perfectly in the trad-jazzy “The Other Brian Woodbury” (recorded with the musician that shares his name) whose auto-mythologizing and brisk piano go hand in hand with joyous dichotomy which will also crop up in “Two Halves” alongside wicked woodwind. However, whereas the mellifluous “We Are The Sun” offers sublime balladry of cosmic-cum-baroque kind, and the marvelous “Everybody’s Gonna Be The Same” marries Renaissance folk to Latino dance, the vocal harmonies-infused “How Soon We Forget, How Long We Remember” directs a bunch of singers towards devilish vaudeville and patinated hootenanny, and the silky serenade “This Golden Hour” gains momentum by gradually spinning a groovy yarn out of its acoustic lace. 

Of course, a smile is guaranteed once “The Day The Music Never Died” pokes a harpsichord-laden satire in Don McLean’s side through detailing the woes of Bach and other classics of yore, and once “Dilettante” and “Murderer” give their pastiche a honeyed, yet histrionic, air that’s filled with ivories and strings, but the menacing, mind-boggling “Bad Timing” is no less unorthodox, shifting gears, styles and tempos ever so often, before the elegiac “When Byron Swam” dissolves in a chamber scherzo. Still, the effects-sprinkled lullaby of “Our Cattywampus World” has alluring madness attached to it to stress the severe burn Woodbury’s incendiary songs serve to modern culture. “Don’t bring the people to your art, the art will find its way,” Brian’s intoning on one of these tracks – and what he does must be eagerly embraced, indeed, albeit not by everybody."

- Dmitry M. Epstein, 12 August, 2022 

From the end: the “Brief Mass” - just under eight minutes of the complete Mass sung in Latin with all the requisites from the Kyrie to the Agnus Dei. Exquisitely arranged for piano, solo vocals, mixed choir, percussion, tuned percussion, trombone and other instruments.

A leap back to the opening “Theseus Rex,” only a minute longer than the final Mass and from a completely different musical vein. A rock opera (or is it musical?) based on a story where Theseus emerges as the illegitimate son of Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, it is inspired by concept albums by major prog rock bands.

Opera in nine minutes? Woodbury deliberately works with shorthand here, condensing large forms into smaller ones on the album. He weaves motifs into one another, and another, without damning any, fading any, changing variations, jumping from a throwaway basal and wonderfully memorable melody to a flighty, expressive signature or even an edgy brutality à la Mr. Bungle, yet the basic theme holds.

And he manages to weave witty social observations into a plethora of catchy melodies. "I'm always trying to write songs about things no one writes songs about." There's no doubt that the visuals of the music unfold in his head as he composes and arranges, evidenced by, among other things, the many videos he enjoys making for his songs. Many are so revelatory that they would make any filmmaker pale with envy.

The journey of the quadrilogy of four double albums collectively titled Anthems & Antithets began in February 2020 with Levity & Novelty (reviewed in UNI 5/2020), followed by Balladry & Soliloquy in June and Antipathy & Ideology at the end of that year. Each is in an elementally different musical mood: witty insight, a personal and even wistful look at the past, politics and an indictment of injustice, and, in the last, a positive view of the future. As on the previous ones, dozens of musicians perform here.

Brian is an almost Beatles-type composer and songwriter who both absorbs and employs (and enjoys) classical serious music. Without noticing it, you'll be happily listening to multifaceted music ranging from pop to rock, cabaret, experimental jazz, big band, avant garde and off-the-wall of all kinds.

- Petr Procházka
January, 2023

"With Rhapsody & Filigree, Brian Woodbury completes the Anthems & Antithets quadrilogy by adding a precious chapter to one of the most eclectic and interesting works of the last decade. Eighty-eight tracks that contain within them a musical and creative cross-section so wide as to appear almost encyclopedic.

Difficult to define him as a singer-songwriter, Brian Woodbury is an atypical musician who ranges from avant-pop to progressive, from jazz to country. He writes songs for television programs for children and for the theater, often subverting genre rules and practices. He began producing songs at the tender age of 11, focusing his studies on different styles of composition. He attended courses with important authors of musical comedies, pop and jazz, collaborated with Van Dyke Parks, and gave life to many bands with which he experimented with singular latin-jazz and bluegrass melanges (The Variety Orchestra), alt-pop (The Popular Music Group), country
(Town & Country) and avant-funk (Some Philharmonic).

Each album of the Los Angeles musician is a rich treasure chest of songs with alien charm. The eighteen tracks that make up Rhapsody & Filigree represent Woodbury's personal vision of progressive music and Genesis in particular, but the alt-pop sound puzzle displayed has deep connections with XTC and Captain Beefheart: the subtitle of the album is "art songs."

What awaits the listener is a musical journey full of unexpected events: so arm yourself with patience and imagination, the wit and ingenuity lavished by the American musician are not easy to metabolize with a single listening, but after all, this is what makes pop-rock music so unique.

The 9 minutes of "Theseus Rex" are a real tour de force of quotes and styles: you could mention a hundred artists and you wouldn’t be wrong, but the merit of Woodbury lies in the skillful architecture of melodic and rhythmic interweaving, a concentration of ideas that alone would be
enough for an entire album: imagine They Might Be Giants produced by Frank Zappa.

Behind each song there is a well-defined artistic genesis, and the story behind "The Other Brian Woodbury" is particularly funny: the L.A. musician discovered on streaming platforms the existence of another musician named Brian Woodbury, a homonymy that created confusion between the two artists. But instead of solving the problem by involving the various streaming platforms, the two artists created further havoc by recording a song together. The decidedly more jazzy aspect of "The Other Brian Woodbury" is actually fertile ground for the instrumental elaborations of the Utah trombonist featured on this simpatico and bizarre duet.

Expanding the stylistic front of Rhapsody & Filigree are the contributions of a copious list of musicians, often left free to transform the already complex and restless compositions of Woodbury. The palm of the most warped and twisted song comes from "Two Halves," pop in the key of Beefheart; a witty mix of samba, cumbia and other exotic holiday delights, "Everybody's Gonna Be The Same" is full of ethno-pop mockery; while for the somewhat sober "How Soon We Forget, How Long We Remember," the musician employs flute, mandolin and banjo players and a
bevy of vocalists who sing an eccentric folk aria.

At this point, rather than trying to further describe the genius of Brian Woodbury, it is preferable to reveal only part of the suggestions that these eighteen sonic Cliff Notes offer. You can let yourself be lulled by the Central European romanticism flavored with Spanish guitar of "This
Golden Hour"; delight yourself with the sound of the harpsichord that introduces the pop levity of "The Day The Music Never Died"; disentangle the poetic dissonances of the prog-jazz ballad "Where It Came From"; or give in to the grandiose charm of the daring, whimsical and
Zappa-esque "We Are The Sun."

It is useless to rush in search of safe holds: Woodbury's songs are the antithesis of radio pop. The American musician masterfully teases the artists hungry for success in the understated "When Byron Swam"; mocks the fake intellectuals of the seven notes in "Dilettante"; and gives
the lie to the avant-garde with a sequence of lyrical and vocal squiggles in an ironically courtly and serious tone in "Murderer."

Not content with such audacity, the curtain falls on the monumental work, first by singing the menacing lullaby of "Our Cattywampus World," then intoning an apocryphal Mass in Latin condensed in the seven bountiful minutes of baroque sonorities in "Brief Mass."

Van Dyke Parks has defined Brian Woodbury as the greatest songwriter since Brian Wilson, a
statement that may seem audacious, but I think that after listening to Rhapsody & Filigree it is difficult not to recognize the Los Angeles musician as a genius decidedly out of the ordinary.

Indispensable."

- Gianfranco Marmoro, 23 January, 2023