SIMON SAYS

A pretty long lasting record, but in this case, it wasn't too long. Tardigrade is the Swedish band's third and most recent record. It was released five years ago. I don't know if the band exists anymore but hope they'll come back with another record soon. This was an honest and interesting form of music. Perhaps they aren't very unique but they still act honest and sophisticated every minute of this record. It's not impossible I will raise it further, right now I just say you this is an excillent addition to any prog rock collection. It's uncommon to hold a prog rock record for a masterpiece after the first listening. Prog creves time and relistening. Here we got Daniel Fäldt on vocals, Magnus Paulsson on keyboards, Jonas Hallberg on guitar and percussion, Matti Jarlhed on drums and percussion and Stefan Renström on bass, keyboards and vocoder.

This album contains ten tracks, all of them are good, some of them are really good. The almost 15 minutes long starter "Suddenly the rain" is marvelous, it reminds me of a (Gabriel)Genesis song, now I can't remember which, and that feels awesome. It is not theft, just inspiration I guess. It starts exuberant and vital and the vocals are great. "Tardigrade" is a little poppier but very dymanic piece. "The chosen one" is calmer with pretty guitar work and it becomes faster later on. A great track. "Moon mountain" shows us guitar collaboration between the acoustic and the electric guitars, very nice result. "As the river runs" continues this symphonic excesses with excellent piano play as an example. "Your future" is a tranquil futuristic prayer and "Strawberry jam" shows how a progressive rock band interprets the concept "jam". In "Circle's End" I think the singer takes his task to another level when it becomes so varying. The last piece is short "Beautiful new day" praise the new day and hopes you will listen to this record again. The largest composition on this record is perhaps overwhelming the first time I listen to it. "Brother where' you bound?" begins directly, just like Genesis' "Supper's ready"(no other comparisons) and takes us on a symphonic journey. This is calm sometimes and fast sometimes. It feels right in many ways but I think it needs relistening.

This could have been even better if they tried more new things. Perhaps this is a tribute to for exemple Genesis and then it's a very good one, much better than some form of cover record. Simon Says shows us great symphonic music and also honest music, but they could have taken it to another record with some strange instruments and vocals in their native language(English is trite). But I will listen to this again, I promise and maybe I'll raise it to five stars. Right now I am proud to give it four.

3.5 stars for sure

Third album of this discret band from Sweden from 2008 named Tardigrade is a great follow up of Paradise square. Another 6 years gone until Simon Says released a new album. To me this is better then previous work, the passages and the overall arrangements are more intresting and mature. Great musicianship as before with plenty of great interplays between musicians, specially the keyboards are fantastic here. Long album clocking around 75 min with long instrumental passages, well performed and played in a pure symphonic prog tradition. Suddenly The Rain and the longest track Brother Where You Bound who has over 25 min are the best from this album, beautiful passages quite complex but yet accesibele most of the time. Little better then previous works but again doesn't fully impress me as other symphonic prog works let's sat from thet period. fans of Spock's beard, Transatlantic, The Flower Kings can easely love this band. 3.5 stars.

Simon Says is a swedish symphonic prog act with 20 years career and only 3 albums released so far. I know this band since they release their second album from 2002 named paradise square. Between this album and their first one is 8 years, and almost no one guessed that they will come with a follow up mainly because some of the members from Simon Says were involved in another band named Valinor's Tree similar in musical style with this album. Now, if the music, the instrumental sections are pretty much ok most of the time, seams to me that the voice is little forced in places but not bad. This type of symphonic prog very muck in The Flowers King, Spock's Beard vein is ok , pleasent but is the kind of prog music that doesn't progress, something is missing in the over all sound. The passages are complex, intricate with nice moods and shift, the keyboards and guitars have an important role here, pieces like Paradise Square or White glove are perfect examples. I like the album but I can't give more then 3 stars. Good band , good album but nothing really is impressive here.

It is both fair and unfair to categorise 'Siren Songs' as a compilation album. Most tracks included are not available on any other album by Simon Says and those that do are either part of another compilation (the epic 'Minds of Mortal Men' & the Swedish language version of 'As the River Runs'. Nevertheless the album sounds like a gathering of bits 'n' pieces left off the band's concept albums, studio out-takes or individual 'demo' recordings rather than a cohesive self-contained album.. This is not to denigrate the music which demonstrates, once again, the band's virtuosic skills and capacity for beautiful, epic creations. The two piano solo tracks are particularly noteworthy as they reveal a high level of 'Modernist' compositional skill. If Genesis were still providing their distinctive form of accessible yet fully 'Progressive' music today I wonder if it would sound something like what Simon Says.

Back in 1995 I was sent two albums to review that had been released on a small Swedish label called Bishop Garden Records ? the first of these was 'Every Pixie Tells a Story' by The Moor, and the second 'Ceinwein' by Simon Says. Stefan Renström was the link between the two bands as he was the bassist for the former and was the leader of the second providing all of the music (originally Simon Says were going to be primarily a duo of Stefan and singer Daniel Fäldt). I gave the album a rave review, loving the mix of Seventies and Eighties prog and the way that it moved ? in fact I said "In my opinion 'Ceinwein' is one of the top albums to come out of Scandinavia this year".

So of course, in the parallel universe the band sold millions and became household names, but in this rather more boring reality they split up. Stefan stayed with The Moor, touring Europe, and then in 2001 he contacted Daniel saying that he wanted to get Simon Says going again. They quickly got a band together and recorded 'Paradise Square', which was released on Galileo Records in 2002 (which I haven't heard) but again the band was shelved. It is hard to find out information on the band and what has been going as neither of their websites have been updated in a number of years and that is a crying shame as this new album is nothing short of brilliant.

This is music that belongs in the Seventies, but it is very much of the present as well. Keyboards can be dominant, or just piano, guitars can be overpowering or non-existent. It has swathes of mellotron and Hackett/Howe guitars with wonderful vocals. Imagine Genesis and Yes moved in a time machine from thirty years ago to now, and then were allowed just enough time to hear what was going on and to get used to modern equipment and then thrown into a studio with Derek Shulman to record an album, and this is what you get. This is a prog lover's dream ? and every home should have this CD. What concerns me is that this band appear to have dropped off the radar again since this release and that is nothing short of criminal ? this is the sort of music that got me involved with the genre in the first place. Modern progheads need bands like these. www.progrockrecords.com

A passage in Macan's 'Rocking the Classics' compares the complex quality of Rick Wakeman's solo albums with those he contributed to as keyboardist for Yes. The former albums, Macan suggests, display Wakeman's impressive technical skills across a wide range of keyboards but ultimately, , "there is not much substance beneath the surface brilliance" with the music becoming a pastiche of ideas" which "are seldom developed and tend to run into one another rather haphazardly". By contrast, the albums of Yes carefully 'develop', 'rework' and 'vary' melodic themes to achieve an impressive 'intensity'. My initial listening to 'Tardigrade' left me to believe that 'Simon Says' were treading the same virtuosic but directionless path as Wakeman in his solo work. It seemed that the group had become more virtuosic and more confident in exploring different musical styles and ideas than in their previous albums and that they had acquired access to a truly monumental range of different instruments and studio gadgetry. Yet, was the music suffering through a desire to employ everything at their disposal regardless or not it contributed to its overall cohesion? After a few repeat listens to the album, however, I now realise that this first impression was a little unfair. Tardigrade, like the group's previous album, is a masterful example of Genesis inspired Progressive Rock and with its undoubted epic qualities provides a model to which so many other groups can only aspire. Ideas, to borrow Macan's words once again, are developed, reworked and varied: and listening to the album is a rewarding experience. Nevertheless, the nagging doubt remains that the musicians have become a little too obsessed with what the various buttons on their instruments and studio equipment can do rather than accepting that sometimes, in the pursuit of musical intensity, less is more.

For many within the Progressive Rock Fan community, Paradise Square by the Swedish group 'Simon Says' is an example of Progressive Rock that fails to progress. Such an approach to the genre, of course, misunderstands the original meaning of the word 'Progressive' within a context where it referred to an initiative to create a style of 'art-for-art's- sake' music in which commercial success was not ofuppermost concern. The label, 'Progressive' Rock, therefore, indicates a style of music which demands the listener's attention and valuation according to its own structural dynamics and compositional sophistication while retaining many of the same sonic qualities and power of Rock (or even 'Pop') music in general. That this initiative led to a radically new art form does not suggest 'newness' was its primary objective ? indeed, the early masterworks of Progressive Rock were always indebted to much of the music that came before and did not offer anything purely original. (The obsession with 'newness' incidentally, addresses a greater concern with 'fashion' with all its commercial connotations). That Paradise Square shares much with the music of Gabriel era 'Genesis' should not, then, lead to its dismissal as un- progressive. The album clearly strives to adopt a similar soundscape, conceptual approach and compositional structure that is highly reminiscent, for example, of Genesis' Suppers Ready ? its frequent employment, for example, of the Mellotron to create an ethereal sonic quality, or its development of a dreamlike and almost incomprehensible narrative - and despite its failure to achieve the same vocal resonance, lyrical brilliance and instrumental beauty of the latter, still offers a highly estimable piece of Progressive Rock. Paradise Square is an album within the same musical mode as Gabriel era Genesis and, assessed according this mode and not by criteria it obviously does not intend to meet, it successfully fulfils its intention. As a listener to a symphonic poem by Delius should not condemn it simply because it adopts a musical form first developed by Liszt, we should appreciate Progressive Rock not according to its 'originality' but by how well it achieves cohesiveness within the mode to which it adheres. And just as a symphonic poem by Delius shares much in common with those composed by Liszt yet will always 'sound' distinctive from it in ways that many will regard as less powerful (while others, of course, will regard it as of greater artistic merit), I feel justified in regarding Paradise Square as a very good Progressive Rock album, a la mid-period Genesis, and of high artistic value even if it fails to achieve ( and here, of course, I only indicate my own personal taste) the same greatness as the mode's founding creations.

This album is like a compilation of the complete history of traditional symphonic prog. It clearly honours the classics, most notably Yes and Trick of the Tail / Wind and Wuthering-period Genesis and occasionally ELP or GG, it also shows Neo influences mostly IQ and Wrightson- period Arena, and finally what it mostly is is post-neo symphonic in the style of Neal Morse (with or without SB), The Flower Kings, Karmakanic, Transatlantic etc.

The only critizable point is the lack of originality, but for all the rest "very good at everything though not really outstanding at anything" seems to be my constant evaluation of each aspect in this album. The compositions are all consistently strong without any moments which feel as filler, but none of them deserves the masterpiece status. All the guys play their instruments very competently but none stands out as a true virtuoso. The voice timbre of Daniel Faldt is equally not particularly special but he sings well and it works.

The sci-fi concept is good enough but I will not explain it here, you can read it in full in their website www.paradisesquare.net. The production is also good, and they use a wide palette of keyboard and guitar timbres so the sound never gets monotonous, although they constantly remind us of one or another prog fragment we have heard before. The music style is accessible but complex enough, melodic, generally energetic but they do not forget calmer moments and as a whole the album achieves a good dynamical pattern.

The two "plats de resistance" are surely the two longest tracks, the opener "Suddenly the Rain" sets things clear from the start being a great song with all what a traditional prog fan loves, and the 26 minutes suite "Brother Where You Bound" is also strong, but the shorter tracks are no less good, including the beautiful acoustic and electric guitar duet in "Moon Mountain".

A very enjoyable album in every respect although if fails to give that "wow factor" of the true masterpieces, highly recommendable to lovers of modern and yet traditional symphonic, but it may disappoint those who seek innovation and uniqueness.

In this second studio albun, "Paradise Square", the Swedish band SIMON SAYS, presents a work, that approaches the sonority found in his third albun "Tardigrade." Maybe that fact is due the change of drummer , the one that seems left the band sound more "freest" , and for guitarist's change, that turned the guitar melodies (electric and acoustics) more pleasant (due to characteristic form of developing the themes) with larger space in the arrangements. In fact, the new guitarist Jonas Hallberg, presents (in my opinion) a larger "amount" of technical resources (lots of volume pedals for instance) and a melodic line more closer of Steve Howe's style ( hears the final passage of the track 1 "...and by the Water", where the guitar presents an effect very similar to that used in the end of "Close to the Edge") & Steve Hackett ( is enough to just hear the introduction of the track 2 "Paradise Square" Continue evident in this disk the same influences that I observed "Ceiwen", however due the alterations in the line-up of the band the main influence of GENESIS appears more lessened and the instrumental "scenery" presents larger proximity with YES, EMERSON LAKE & PALMER and even GENTLE GIANT. A brilliant disk, full of beautiful moments. My rate is 5 stars!!!

(3,5 stars) -In spite of presenting in his first studio disk "Ceiwen", a quite approximate musical conception of "Tardigrade", which deserving the maximum note from me , a mixture among the sound of "modern" bands, such like THE FLOWER KING'S & SPOCK'S BEARD, with influences of monsters of the prog of the 70's such like YES, GENESIS and EMERSON LAKE & PALMER, this work of SIMON SAYS if no disappoint in the sense of the musical quality, doesn't present the same impact of that. I believe that such fact is due the difference in the line-up of the band, mainly in what refers an absence of exclusive keyboard player (function carried out by bass player Stefan Renström), what limits the creativity. However I want to emphasize that the disk presents excellent musical moments ( same that when seeing me the i GENESIS influences are more pronounced in this disk than in "Tardigrade") and that I believe, sincerely that if you liked "Tardigrade" should appreciate "Ceiwen." My highlights are to the tracks 3 "Bedtime Story", 6 "B.A.J.S.Radio" and 7 "Kadazan." My rate is 3 stars.