My god, really? They come into the desert late, the last minute of the eleventh hour and all, but you know how musicians are and I never heard of these guys but with a name like Orphan in the Afterlife I am damn well expecting leather-straining Norwegians with too many fücking ümlaüts in their fücking names and songs about dragons and battling undead demon babies in Svartalfheim while wearing codpieces that immolate nonbelievers and stuff just starts catching fire everywhere and all the rivers turn to blood and shit, and in the words that opening act Flip Cassidy intimated to me as we throttled past Bombay Beach, “I like my women like I like my metal: black, fast, and growling about Satan.”

But what the hell, these guys aren’t growling about Satan! They’re not even growling at all! There’s not a single damn Viking among them. They’re these polite little bastards and they’re just jamming about mighty fine porcupines and funky monkeys and they look so meek and friendly and mild that I just want to shove a giant sweater over them before they catch their deaths of cold, the poor dears and Hey! This is great!  It’s all accordions and electric ukeleles and saxophones and vocals that just take the bones of you and – holy shit! Is that a double bass? Jesus, I ain’t been up close with one of those since Teddy Ciccone asked me to touch wieners with him in the music classroom once during recess in fourth grade. But this is definitely not metal. What’s that? Fairytale funk? Ha ha, get the fuck out of here, that’s not even a real thing. That’s like saying crunkcore is an actual genre and God forgive us all if it is.

But, yeah, yeah – okay. Maybe fairytale funk could be a thing. I could see that. Because, sweet chocolate Jesus, Orphan in the Afterlife are on to something, I think, and if that something is anywhere in the ballpark of Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts getting held up at all sorts of hookah-heavy Moroccan roll tea parties on their way to the goddamn moon, then I just blew every cliché X-meets-Y comparison circuit I have and I need new pants.

But screw it, let’s try for some more anyway!

The Canterbury Tales with a talking stick made of hemp, happy thoughts, and bong resin!

Werner Herzog filming Cave of Forgotten Dreams in bat country!

Something music something something Victorian something … with KNIVES!

Abbott and Costello and a trombone meet the Werewolves of London!

Etta James and Tom Waits beating the shit out of each other with fish sculptures carved from rusty tin cans! For two hours!

David Bowie as Aladdin Sane as Nikola Tesla in a labyrinth! No, not that labyrinth! Pan‘s Labyrinth! With Guillermo del Toro staring at you the whole fucking time!

Okay, so this is all sounding ridiculous, and that’s because it is ridiculous – it’s completely ridiculous that some random band to appear in the desert from out of nowhere should have the cleanest, booziest, jazzy and magic dusted bluesiest, most infectiously enthusiastic sound I’ve heard in bloody geological ages while I still manage to encounter a Nickelback song at least twice a day on the radio – and I don’t even listen to the radio. I have no idea exactly how Orphan in the Afterlife managed to find themselves at East Jesus nor, I suspect, does anyone else, but whatever! It’s a hell of a show and a hell of a good night and there’s enough bombast here to blast us all to Hell!

And – WOAH. The lead singer just put her clarinet down and all of a sudden she’s vocalizing, ululating, vamping and dancing in place like someone shoved Lisa Gerrard into a cocktail dress and dumped her in the Coco Bongo. Do they still make voices like hers? How can I listen to this, watch this, and hold out hope that my heart will not just suddenly explode at some point tonight? And how many of her, d’you think, could dance on the head of a pin?

“Her.” “They.” “Lead singer.” Damn. I’ve forgotten their names already, lovely people, really, but hey we were all in the hot springs together after the show and then ate some cookies, and I can see how that level of socialization could skew any attempts at objectivity when writing a review but – the hell with it – if you’ve never gotten naked together and then shared the fuck out of some homemade lemon cookies with your new favorite band, well then you obviously don’t know a damn thing about music and I am not going to explain myself to you, you fucking peasant.