As The River Runs (Simon Says, 2008)

"Tardigrade" is probably the Swedish Simon Says' most successful album to date and this is my favourite track in it. Being a neo-prog band, Symon Says don't make any musical revolution and follow in some well known tracks, but they do this very, very well. In "As The River Runs" there's anything you could ask for in a prog rock song: melodic and well sung themes, jazzy bridges, surprising changes, walls of sound, fast and slow passages, keyboard progressions and guitar solos.

"Tardigrade" is the third Simon Says' album.

Listening this for the first time, some could take it as a beautiful but rough rhapsody, sort of a container track, full of ideas and with a lack in organisation. Well, that's not true, and a further listening shows a well structured song, with the different phases set in a carefully chosen order, aimed to a winding and growing intensity. This effect is increased by some fair internal returns and - most of all, IMHO - by a discreet and effective piano. The final result is a flush, rich and brilliant synphonic rock mini-suite. For me, that's enough.