Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Simple Minds
Label: Self-released
Release: 2014
Duration: 52:21
Rating: 4.5/5
The big veterans of the eighties new wave generation, the long-lived Scots Simple Minds, are back with a new studio release five years after »Graffiti Soul« (2009). The guys promised this album more than three years ago, but we had to be patient a little longer. Simple Minds have spent the past few years mostly playing live, very often, on stages decked out with picturesque set designs dedicated either to playing the material from their first five studio albums to the letter, or to running through the biggest hits of their career. On stage the band radiates incredible form, the result of vast experience. The great partnership that has kept Simple Minds standing since their beginnings in the second half of the seventies, singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill, once again contributed the bulk of the material for the new album.
This time the creative core of the duo focused more heavily on creating a gripping, hypnotic atmosphere, balanced in contrast, on one hand, by the firm implantation of disco-flavored rhythmic structures and, on the other, by a soundscape with a dense blanket of shimmering synth layers and “whistling” guitars built on generous use of the “sustain” effect. In places on the album the keyboards even take on a dominant role in shaping the soundscape, although Simple Minds carefully craft a remarkably well-balanced bond between the building blocks of the sound (keyboards, guitar, and especially sound effects – samples), as the instantly gripping opener Blindfolded (the album’s first single) confirms. The intro of the second single, Honest Town, rests on a programmed sound sample and a blanket of synthesizers in the background. Into that mood is woven Jim Kerr’s soulful, velvety vocal, the one factor reminding you that this is Simple Minds and not, say, Depeche Mode.
Simple Minds know what catchiness is. The chorus melodies are exceptionally tuneful, especially when the album’s songs line up one after another: Honest Town, Big Music, Human, Concrete And The Cherry Blossom, Blood Diamonds, the “INXS-like” Imaginaton, or the closing Spirited Away. But the title track Big Music takes the crown, a song that would have been a huge hit in the eighties without any trouble, with a chorus into which Simple Minds injected an extremely bombastic, grabby energy. This very song is the centerpiece of the album. Simple Minds already tested it on stage in 2013 and 2014, where it was usually slotted into the first encore of the set, and even back then it signaled that the new album would slot perfectly in alongside the group’s iron-clad classics.
Simple Minds have the great knack, which they can pull off with their left pinky, of getting the ideas that spring up in their heads onto tape as authentically and unadulterated as possible. That’s actually one of the hardest things in composing music, but a band like Simple Minds has no trouble with it whatsoever. On top of that, for the new album Simple Minds really picked the best of the best from the material that piled up over the last five years. That’s why »Big Time« is a big musical treat, marked by an artistic perfectionism, a hair-splitting polishing of motifs and sonic structures. The moods of the grabbingly pompous soundscape carry a hypnotic effect that whisks you off to a parallel world beyond reality, provided you know how to surrender to the magic by switching off the logical part of your brain. The album works perfectly on night drives or on drives surrounded by the expanses of unspoiled nature.
Simple Minds cultivate that recognizable sentiment of Scottish melancholy, shrewdly infused with solemnity. The polished sense of musicality typical of the descendants of the Celtic highlanders is built into 12 outstanding tracks, including a refreshed version of the evergreen Broken Glass Park. All of them have a great fluidity in building up moods through the verses, via the pre-choruses, into the chorus. The song Let the Day Begin suggests that Simple Minds played their big hit Waterfront a lot on the current tours (they usually opened their shows with it), because Let the Day Begin has thoroughly soaked up its basic rhythmic structure.
Simple Minds don’t give up. The album »Big Music« is a genuine imprint of the artistry of an extremely seasoned band for whom everything in composing and in the production wizardry of sound processing is crystal clear. The new studio album was worth every second of the five-year wait. It knows no compositional slip-ups. The band is maturing like good old wine and showing remarkable vitality even in the mature years of their career. Rust isn’t going to stick to these guys anytime soon. That’s why »Big Music« is an outstanding continuum of the enviable artistic and commercially successful path that the famous lads from Glasgow have walked over the decades.
With the new album, Simple Minds prove that the evolution of their style and sound is far from over, that they’re still brimming with fresh creative ideas, and that they have no time for the pathetic “riding on past glory” routine, which is the approach of far too many artists, contemporaries of Simple Minds. From the artistically colorless new Depeche Mode album to the pronounced corporate heartlessness of U2, which has been winding on since the mid-nineties. In contrast to them, even with »Big Time« Simple Minds keep their eternal playfulness, potency, and teenage sentiment, and along with that their newly created music keeps its great appeal as well. “Big Music” is considered one of the best art rock achievements of this year, one that will surely stand the test of time and one day grow into a classic.
Lineup
Jim Kerr – vocals
Charlie Burchill – guitar
Mel Gaynor – drums
Andy Gillespie – keyboards
Ged Grimes – bass guitar
Sarah Brown – backing vocals
Production
Simple Minds
Track List
1. Blindfolded
2. Midnight Walking
3. Honest Town
4. Big Music
5. Human
6. Blood Diamonds
7. Let The Day Begin
8. Concrete And Cherry Blossom
9. Imagination
10. Kill Or Cure
11. Broken Glass Park
12. Spirited Away
