Simon Says
Tardigrade

"Tarots and the North" (twelve writings each paired with a Major Arcana by Luis Royo)

"VIII. The Tower"

«And it is said that once, passing by where a little dog was being mistreated, Pythagoras, moved, uttered these words: "Stop beating, for it is certainly the soul of a friend of mine, I recognized it by hearing its voice"». Xenophanes, the minstrel who, at ninety-two years of age, still roamed lively through Hellas, intoning his polemical songs against the major religious systems of the time, reserved this playful anecdote for the belief, shared by different sects, in an incalculable series of reincarnations, necessary to atone for a primal fault extended to every living being. The scholar of the history of musical thought should be familiar with the concept of "progressive metempsychosis," having certainly witnessed its occurrence on several occasions, when the artistic spirit of a dying group transmits, even decades later, to the "body" of another formation willing to welcome and carry on its apostolate.

In this case, however, we can only arm ourselves with healthy skepticism and use the Xenophanean obstinacy and mockery as a beacon through the stylistic mists of the mellifluous Simon Says, a Swedish quintet back on stage, six years after the decent "Paradise Square" and a full thirteen years after the mediocre debut "Ceinwen" of 1995, with "Tardigrade," an ambitious symphonic colossus that, from the very first note, imitates the "voice of a friend" common to all lovers of progressive culture, lost in the "Banksian" landscapes of "Wind and Wuthering" and incessantly evoked by an endless array of epigones, never truly capable of exploring that enchanted environment without losing their bearings and ending up on already trodden paths or facing insurmountable obstacles.

It is therefore not surprising to see how the bold endeavor, presumptuously announced by the keyboard of newcomer Magnus Paulsson, can instead easily degenerate into the familiar dynamics of a guided safari, where the cheerful instruments, like curious and puerile tourists, simply take pictures of the territory, capturing vivid and freckled scenarios as essentially anonymous and constrained within the limits of a tried-and-true formula, immune to the intermittent metal pulses of Matti Jarlhed's drums, reminiscent of the hybrid sound of their fellow countrymen Pär Lindh Project ("Suddenly the Rain").

The claims, full of character and punch, of Stefan Renström's bass, instead of redeeming the band's pride, show an alarming lack of depth ("Tardigrade", "Strawberry Jam"), exemplified by the "synthetic" voice of Daniel Fäldt, formally pleasant but completely unable to convey even the faintest emotion, giving a tragicomic effect to the few truly inspired moments of the keyboard ("As the River Runs") and the guitar ("The Chosen One"), which nevertheless merits a brief but interesting excursion at the foot of an isolated and evocative mountain ("Moon Mountain").

After almost fifty minutes of incoherent roundabouts, animated by the rhythm of dispensable and at times mawkish ballads ("Circles End", "Beautiful New Day"), the silhouette of a towering construction emerges, enthusiastically traveled by the usual keyboard and the guitar of Jonas Hallberg, which, dissolving the already scant inhibitions, embark on a pointless race marked by a self-indulgence so cumbersome and burdensome that it causes the collapse of a structure already precarious and inadequate to bear the weight of such greed ("Brother Where You Bound"), resulting in the fall of a majestic but fragile tower, the perfect symbol of an attractive yet naive work destined, like the beautiful Narcissus, to succumb contemplating its own image, too beautiful for its own good.

«We watch, in reverence, as Narcissus is turned to a flower... A flower?» (Peter Gabriel, "Supper's Ready")