Simm is to chill-out what Tool are to hardcore metal -- that is a more oppressive, self-hating variation that works towards progressive art rock.
Simm's music is closest to
Tricky's Nearly God trip-hop in practice, with stark intellectual environments, intensely controlled samples -- perhaps one or two elements per song -- and a soiled production that suggests the album was recorded in a toilet at a gas station. Where
Simm strays is in
Welcome's ambiguity. The album is predominately the same throughout and there are few tangible ideas other than a single menacing groove. While this may have worked in his collaborations with
Bill Laswell and Mick Harris, here the tension wears off within the first act and
Simm sounds uninterested in replacing it, less and less sure of his spartan personality. ~ Dean Carlson