CEINWEN

This group is part of the second wave of 90's Swedish invasion along with the more neo- prog Galleon and Twin Age. Simon Says , however is much more along the lines of Anglagard and Landberk in terms of sound but more in the neo-prog in terms of songwriting (are you following me? ).

I have finally recuperated this CD (lent to a friend in 97 and thought to be lost - the friend too if he had not reimbursed me) and I gather that it has been out of print for so long and is really nowhere to be found. On with the music then, as the rather short intro leads you to two of the better tracks Seal (6 min+) and Story (11 min+) full of typical sounding Swedish prog therefore full of Mellotron and (rather irritatingly) Banks-like organ chords. Then comes a weird and rather useless track in between the Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk modes and another average two tracks before come the 15 min+ finale Kadazan that happens to be another highlight of this album. The instrumentist are rather credible and the vocals is typically what you might expect from this stuff - sounding somewhat like Valinor's Tree (a band which shares one or two members with SS but not the singer).

This album always got less spinning time (before its 7 years loss) than other early 90's Swedish group and it is no wonder because it is far behind AnglaDotenBerk anfd was quite derivative. I am even more severe now that I have re-listened to this album in the past five days - so it only gets three stars in my book but it should please many neo-progheads.