Fanfarlo - luna, 2009

"I think “Luna” is my favorite song to play."

Fanfarlo - ghosts, 2009

"I was going through this obsession with lakes, and in particular with artificial lakes. There are some many interesting aspects to the whole idea of constructing a lake. Actually originally I wanted to make a whole album about a reservoir but the only song that made it to the album from that idea is one of the older songs, which is called “Ghosts” and is a ghost story about a reservoir."

Fanfarlo - the walls are coming down, 2009

"these folks know what to do with a trumpet, which is more than can be said for some, and the arrangement on this single is stunning – orchestral and complex yet utterly accessible, with the tinkle of a glockenspiel welcoming all and sundry to the fold."

Fanfarlo - comets, 2009

"This London-based five-piece are fronted by Swedish singer Simon Balthazar, whose presence dominates this rather samey and overwrought debut. With a mannered, slurred singing voice pitched somewhere between David Byrne and Brendan Flowers of The Killers, he is both what makes Fanfarlo most distinctive and also the thing that is most likely to wind you up. Because of the way he sings, the lyrics seem incidental, if not entirely instrumental."

Fanfarlo - cell song, 2014

"This one song on the record, ‘Cell Song,’ you could sort of listen to it and it could be a love song. And that’s fine. But what it’s actually about is coming from a place of thinking of the billions of cells in your body. In a sense, each cell is an organism. It’s just that that organism has adapted to other organisms in a slightly fascist structure where you will do what you’re told, otherwise you will die”

Fanfarlo - tunguska, 2012

"In this song they are singing about mysterious event in 1908 that destroyed 80 million trees in Siberia with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima."

Fanfarlo - life in the sky, 2014

"Though seemingly complicated in theme, the London band, led by Swedish musician Simon Balthazar, makes it all eminently palatable with hook-laden choruses and a relaxed delivery. This strange but pleasing amalgam of sounds"

Fanfarlo - the beginning and the end, 2014

"There is gold beneath the ashes," sings Simon Balthazar on ‘The Beginning and the End’, the penultimate track on Fanfarlo’s excellent if flawed third album. "We have mouths to feed and Utopia to reach." These are fine, optimistic sentiments on an album that is generally thoughtful, uplifting and musically engaging, packed with deceptively complex, melodic songs that stimulate the mind and the senses alike. Yet, as indicated by its title, it’s a record that also seems sadly on the verge of giving up entirely."

Fanfarlo - let's go extinct, 2014

"with Let’s Go Extinct, Fanfarlo have dodged the bullet fired by the Smith & Wesson revolver of irony (a rare model) by ensuring that the quality of their songwriting remains solid."