THE STORY OF SIMON SIMOPATH

I had quite different musical expectations from this group than what I eventually discovered from their albums. Instead of fuzzy psychedelia this first album of this group consists carefully constructed orchestrated pop gems similar in style of The Beatles. Though I'm not a big fan of this style, I enjoyed listening this record quite much. Psychedelic elements are present only in quite subtle amounts, mostly in surrealistic lyrics and small artistic arrangements and audio effects. Also Campbell-Lyons Irish accent brings a sincere personal flavor to the music.

"Wings of Love" opens the album with dynamic and effective manner, and listeners are introduced to the story of an Earth visiting alien Simon Simopath, his friends and lady companion, "shot down by a kind of bow and arrow" from the orbit. A melancholic minor waltz "Lonely Boy" which is followed by more uplifting "We Can Help You", describing Simon's situations among men further in detail. In "Satellite Jockey" Simon head's back to the stars with his woman, arriving "In The Courtyard of The Stars", a please described as more tender jazzy ballad with nice rhythmic pauses, beautiful dreamy singing melodies and flutes. "You're Just The One" is a more faster piano driven bluesy song in vein of 60's rhythm blues. Sweet pop ballad "Pentecost Hotel" was also released as a single cut, and it's really carefully tinkered tune, maybe just too sweet for my taste. "I Never Found A Love Like This" continues in mellow and romantic spheres, leading to the wedding sequence "Take This Hand", which has strong chorus verses. The finale "1999" is a jokey Dixieland tune, being quite funny but leaving a bit silly aftertaste for the whole story of this record. Well, this album isn't very serious in any aspect anyway.

Featuring the both stereo / mono mixes on the remastered CD I got appeared a bit futile to me, but there were some nice single B-sides included also, like "I Believe In Magic" from their fabulous first "Tiny Goddess" and "Feelin' Shattered" from their second single. "Life ain't Easy" is really pretty and melancholic song, and "Requiem to John Coltrane" starts promisingly with an abstract sound wall and distant unclear noises, but the stupid fooling done through the horn ruined the track in my opinion. I would recommend this album highly for those people who like orchestrated late 1960's pop music, and also fanatic sci-fi fans who want to check out all genre related stuff might be interested of listening this warmhearted album.

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