Artist: Simple Minds
Label: Sanctuary Records
Release: 2005
Rating: 4/5
Duran Duran’s reunion and new album, along with new albums from U2, Depeche Mode and New Order, are all part of a 2005 trend of reviving “new wave eighties” pop, and Simple Minds have jumped on it too, coming out swinging with an album like nothing they’ve made since “New Gold Dream”.
One of Scotland’s most commercially successful bands by a long shot, they’ve racked up twenty “top 20” hits over a career spanning almost three full decades, sold more than 30 million records, scored no fewer than five “No. 1” studio albums, plus one “No. 1” hit and three “top 10” hits in the US, and were once even given the flattering title of best live band in the world by “Q Magazine”. With their work, Simple Minds have influenced younger bands like Muse, The Killers, Moby, Manic Stret Preachers, Bloc Party and Stereophonic, to name just a few.
“Black & White 050505” takes Simple Minds back to the fields of glory, to the best the band did in the eighties, namely “Sparkle in the Rain”, “Once upon a Time” and “Street Fighting Years”. Even the great cover art manages to put the listener in just the right mood to start enjoying the album. The fives and zeros refer to the day Simple Minds wrapped up recording the new album (05.05.2005). The cover shows a symbol of loyalty, love and friendship, so Simple Minds clearly aren’t hiding their identification with the Claddagh symbol.
The new album has nine finely polished songs and, as such, no “fillers” whatsoever. The highly atmospheric intro tells you something interesting is cooking! And when, after about a minute, Burchill’s unmistakable guitar and Gaynor’s infectious, fluid rhythm line kick into Stay Visible, with Duffy’s thickly strung, authentically rattling bass pushed up front, the record starts to flow smoothly, and that familiar Simple Minds feeling, the one only they can deliver, is instantly and unmistakably there. Especially when Kerr opens his mouth for the first time and the band’s trademark vocal joins in. Melancholy rules over everything! The compact, punchy rhythm crawls right under your skin. A subtly woven guitar floats separately all the way through, drifting across expanses of simple but very effective motifs. Home is built like a proper “single”! A pop rock song that just proves the old cats are born writers of impressive songs that grab the listener in an instant. It’s constructed like a proper “eighties” hit. It carries a sense of drama and a lively pop rhythmic foundation.
Stranger, Different World and The Jeweller (Part 2) all just confirm the band’s outstanding potential for expressing their own recognizable voice. The songs carry atmospheric depth and sensuality, and Simple Minds approach it all with refined sophistication. There’s no pretentiousness or weirdness to be felt. At the same time, the songs are put together so they’re endlessly enticing, and plenty of people will end up spinning them in their CD player several times in a row. In the same breath, I can already say that any song from the new album making it onto the live setlist would be very welcome.
Simple Minds are certainly not a warm, wild, adrenaline-pumping rock band. Their poetry and music are marked by at least a minimal touch of cold breath, which, say, in the deeply moody Underneath the Ice turns into a full-on ice-age experience. The song is incredibly theatrical and simply sucks the listener into the meditative, icy embrace of a highly atmospheric melody built on ingenious, gently shifting collages of ballad-like dreaminess. Standing right beside it is the closer, Dolphins!
Simple Minds have put out a mature album that doesn’t try to chase the notoriety of the eighties band at the peak of its powers, current stylistic “retro eighties” leanings notwithstanding. Not like U2, who with every release do their utmost to smash commercial records in the music world and inflate every creation to the max until barely any authenticity is left. Simple Minds stay modest, keeping a low profile, and this time their tracks, as potential hits, won’t set off mass euphoria among the music-buying public. Simple Minds’ female fans, who have now gracefully stepped into their mid-thirties and become mums and mostly well-settled folks, will welcome this record with open arms. Like I said, “Black And White 050505” is an excellent album. Polished to the max from head to toe, played without inhibitions, without expectations. Nobody making it was worrying about profit and loss. In short, a great album!
Lineup
Jim Kerr – vocals
Charlie Burchill – guitar
Eddie Duffy – bass guitar
Mel Gaynor – drums
Guest musician:
Andy Gillespie – keyboards
Production
Steve Lillywhite
Tracklist
1. Stay Visible
2. Home
3. Stranger
4. Different World (TAORMINA.ME)
5. Underneath the Ice
6. The Jeweller (Part 2)
7. Black and White
8. Kiss the Ground
9. Dolphins
Running time: 40:55
