Customer Reviews

Tardigrade

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Beautiful!!!Tardigrade is one of those cd that I listen again after it has finished.There are echoes of past into a present sound and although sometimes remembers me groups like Genesis , Yes or others prog reference,Tardigrade plays in a special way for every track of album,and this,isn't easy to find today in the new prog music.With Tardigrade Simon Says have done a great musical work with an excellent recording ,and for me,one of the best prog cd of last years!

This is a must for the symphonic and neo prog music lovers of the 70's! For those who like Yes, period Relayer and Genesis.

Keyboards dominate this C.D. which for me is a good thing! There are passages which remind me of Howe and Squire and yet others, Keith Emerson. The songs grow on you much like Genesis, Yes and ELP did during their early years. The lead singer has a strange voice which may be more suitable for a country western band but after multiple listens, the great musicianship and those keyboards make for a great listen. This is a talented group which I hope will continue to grow.

If you got this far in your research of Simon Says' 'Tardigrade', don't waste another minute...just get it! Seriously.

This band has flown under the radar and managed to avoid the larger exposure of newer prog artists and I cannot figure out why. There are other more detailed reviews here for you to review, I won't give a track-by-track analysis. Let me just say that I find this album wickedly intriguing. I bought it nine months ago and cannot quit listening to it.

If you dig ELP, old Genesis, TFK, any other Swede prog (even PoS), buy it now and you'll want to write your own gushing review after a few listens.

I say 5 stars. No question!

This 2008 release by Swedish group Simon Says is fantastic and may very well be my most prized discovery in recent times. Although it borrows heavily from the 1970s prog acts, this is a fresh-sounding piece of music that updates the classic prog style with current trends in rock. I also appreciate their analog approach, which places them alongside groups like Anglagard and Wobbler.

The ten tracks range in length from 0:26 to the mammoth "Brother Where You Bound" suite (26:33). The influences are pretty obvious and I can hear late 1970s Genesis, along with bits from the first solo album by Mike Rutherford (Smallcreep's Day, 1980) and the 1977 debut by obscure English progressive rock group England. Thankfully, there are no stadium rock influences and everything sounds organic and natural. There is also a subtle darkness to the tracks that I find appealing.

The band members are first-chair players and excellent group writers - the pieces are interesting and engaged me instantly. Although a guitarist is present, the overall sound is dominated by layers of piano, Hammond organ, mellotron, electric piano, and synthesizers such as the mini-moog and some of the polyphonic synths that appeared in the late 1970s. Good use is made of dynamics - though a high energy recording, the louder passages are leavened by soft acoustic textures on the guitar and the piano, along with (mostly) clean tones on the electric guitar. The use of Taurus bass pedals (or a similar sounding piece of equipment) really adds to the Genesis-like quality of the music. The vocalist is excellent and sounds like a baritone/low tenor. His tone is rich and warm and although he sometimes uses a falsetto to reach the upper registers, it is not distracting. The use of the vocoder is pretty cool.

The production quality is exceptionally high; it is warm and every instrument can be heard with great clarity. The bass guitar tone is perfect; trebly, yet not gratingly so - with loads of bottom end (very Chris Squire-like). The CD package is nice too and features the lyrics, production credits, and some arty images.

All in all, this is an excellent album that should appeal to fans of groups such as Wobbler and perhaps Anglagard. As a fan of these groups, and someone trying to find newer symphonic prog that does not sound like stadium rock, I consider this a great find. In fact, I had just about given up. Highly recommended.

I do love the music on this CD. It's lush and captivating. After many times through I just can't get into the vocals. It's the only thing keeping me from giving this 5 stars.

For some reason I've held off writing a review on this CD for quite a while. Almost 2 years now that I think about it. Not sure why, because it's one of my favorite disks, and is probably in my top 4 or 5 for play rotation over those last 2 years.

I first heard Simon Says when I was on the road traveling through some former-soviet-satellite-state, and while sitting at the airport, nervously surfing their open wi-fi, I downloaded "Suddenly the Rain" and "Let the Race Begin" (from the band "Moth Vellum") and loaded them on my no-name MP3 player. The reviews seemed positive enough (can't remember if I was able to hear song samples or not), and 99 cents for a 14 minute track was the "right price" in my book.

And at some point within the next couple days while I was out jogging, I had a good chance to listen to both songs and I immediately was feeling VERY pleased with my shot-in-the-dark downloads. First thing I noticed from Simon Says was the vocalist. Wow. Nice, full-bodied voice with an interesting timbre. Anybody who has read a few of my other prog-related reviews knows I'm not too crazy about a lot of the vocalists out there singing in the more modern prog bands. They're not horrible, they just frequently have no personality or they sound like they learned their chops singing with a hair-metal cover band. The Simon Says lead singer, Daniel Fäldt, seriously has a classic prog/rock voice. Back in the 70s you couldn't really get by without a singer who had a really good voice (well, mostly)...Greg Lake, the Phil's (Gabriel and Collins), John Wetton, Ian Gillian (Deep Purple), David Byron (Uriah Heep), and one of the proto-typical rock voices, Roger Daltry. Ok, Daniel Fäldt isn't quite at that level, but he's close and he's a LOT closer than any other post-Spock's Beard era prog singers.

So, based on that first MP3 purchase, about a week later when I came off the road, I one-clicked the whole CD, "Tardigrade", and was almost as blown away with the rest of the CD as I was with "Suddenly the Rain".

There is nothing on Tardigrade that's ground-breaking. It sounds a LOT like classic 70's prog, taking heavily from bands like Genesis, but then adding a modern touch in the production and recording that definitely place it in a more updated era. As already mentioned, the sound is fairly keyboard heavy (lots of classic organ, analog-sounding synth, and some piano) with some solid chunky bass lines (with that classic Rickenbacker-ish Lee-Squire feel), and then a solid supporting role from both the guitar and drums. On a couple tracks the guitar comes up front: "Moon Mountain" is basically one acoustic guitar and one electric guitar playing together, and "Circles End" is a nice piece shaped around acoustic guitar and sounding a LOT like "Entangled" from "A Trick of the Tail" in places (nice, arpeggiated acoustic guitar chords, with backing mellotron-ish string/choir pads, supported by some moog-ish bass pedal sounds, and a vibrato-filled solo synth voice). But despite the similarities, it's still a great song. The granddaddy prog epic of the CD is naturally the 26 and half minute "Brother Where You Bound". Though I did like the same-named Supertramp tune/album, this song nicely stands on its own and is prog at its proggiest! LONG, multi-segmented themes, passages, varying time signatures/tempos/melodies, all nicely developed and tied together coherently.

Trust me, just because a song is long, doesn't mean it's great. The Flower Kings sometimes have a problem making all 20-some minutes of their big songs seem relevant..."Brother Where You Bound" doesn't have that problem and is the crowning jewel on a well-written and well-recorded almost-modern-prog-masterpiece. It's not a super-original modern prog masterpiece, but it is super none-the-less.

And compared to their release previous to this, "Paradise Square" (which I later downloaded) they really did develop the song-writing and recording for "Tardigrade". In quite a few places "Paradise Square" sounds like it's TRYING to sound like prog where "Tardigrade" seems like it comfortably IS prog (if that makes any sense).

In summary: GREAT disk, and if you like classic 70's prog, especially `75-`78 era Genesis, I think you'll seriously dig this as well. And sorry this is such a lengthy review. I tend to babble about things I really enjoy and the length of this review of "Tardigrade" is definitely indicative of how much I liked it!

This is the only Simon Says album I currently own and I'd have to say I'm pretty pleased with the album overall. Like much of what's out there in the prog market over the last 10 years, I'd say it's very much in the same vein as their fellow Swedes The Flower Kings. It's clearly heavily influenced by classic 70's prog but like the Flower Kings, at times updates the sound here and there to give a nod to some current neo-prog influences. Like The Tanget, Magic Pie and several other similar groups, I'm not blown away by the signing which seems to be a common weak spot with these groups. With the flower kings Roine does fine for a good chunk of the music, but I like how he brings in Gildenlow or other very strong singers in places to really help the singing reach the power of the music it's accompanying.

In any case, this is a very nice effort with only a few lulls in the album overall and I'd recommend it to anyone who's a big fan of Flower King/Karmikanic/Tanget/IQ style of music.

I had never heard of Simon Says until I saw them on Amazon. When I did a little reseach into the band, I found that they are more of a studio project than an actual touring band. This is not always a bad thing, but I am initially leery of any band who seldom performs live. Eventually, I gave in and bought Tardigrade and found that my misgivings were totally unfounded. Simon Says plays very synth-heavy prog remniscint of many of the greats (both past and present) without copying any one band's sound. Every instrument is played with great ability and the singer, contrary to another review, has one of the better voices in today's prog-rock scene. I would recommend Simon Says to any fan of quality prog-rock, especially those with an afinity to dexterous keyboards.

Having been a progressive rock fan for about 3 decades I've pretty much heard it all . This first effort by this new band doesn't, I don't think bring anything dramatically new to the table in terms of new soundscape . Their influences are quite clear . What I find exciting is the compositions . Strong melodies well timed showcasing of the individual musicians in the band AND really talented musicians at that. I can't stop listening to it because in every spin , I find a nice nugget I didn't notice the last listen . It surprises me a little every time I hear it . This is a slightly fresh product on an old genre and even though there are certainly very heavy references to both Genesis and Yes (the overwhelming bass pedals and flighty keyboards to mention 2) I don't get the feeling I'm listening to a retread here . Nice solid and sometimes spectacular Swedish Prog .