Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Simple Minds
Label: BMG Rights Management
Release: 2018
Length: 51:01
Rating: 4.5/5
»Walk Between Worlds« is the new and overall eighteenth studio album from Simple Minds, the Scottish »new wave« attraction of the eighties. Simple Minds are, of course, music legends, loaded with hits and evergreen classics, and they haven’t needed to prove themselves to anybody for a long time now. So for quite a while they’ve been recording and releasing albums by taking all the time in the world, filing and filing and filing their ideas down to the last detail, until they hit the required compositional and sonic perfection. And that bar has always been very high with Simple Minds. Despite what the band’s name suggests, »sacred simplicity« in the glow of pure-blooded, eclectic artistry is wildly hard to pull off unless you’ve got the right creative talent. And thank God, Simple Minds have that talent in spades. Talent that doesn’t fade even in the mature years of these Glasgow lads’ career. The latest albums, such as Cry (2002), »Black And White 050505« (2005), »Graffithi Soul« (2009), »Big Music« (2014) and now the newest »Walk Between Worlds«, reflect an exceptional compositional ripening and maturity that the band has reached over the years through healthy, natural self-evolution. They’re the jewels of the great artistic perfectionism that adorns the band’s two main creative characters, guitarist Charlie Burchill and singer Jim Kerr. The musical essence, in other words, without which there is no Simple Minds music. Two enormously powerful figures on whom the band’s unique musical vocabulary and track record rest.
Compared to the outstanding predecessor »Big Music«, which Simple Minds recorded mostly as a band, »Walk Between Worlds« once again brings in a wider palette of musicians. It’s also an album without keyboardist Andy Gillespie, with whom Simple Minds amicably parted ways this year and who had worked with the band ever since the album »Cry« (2002). Keyboards and programming on most of the new album’s arrangements were thus handled by guitarist Charlie Burchill.
Simple Minds are masters at creating top-shelf pomp, when it comes to reaching that greedy, sonically vibrant layered drama theater that keeps giving you goosebumps. The arrangements ride giant waves of layered, synthesized guitars, and through this fog of sonic veils or panels, Burchill’s hypnotic guitar, with its full-blooded, wailing sustain, always bites its way through. And when you add a firm rhythmic backbone, eyeing the dance beat, and the teasing, erotically whispering vocals of Jim Kerr, it’s clear as day that »Walk Between Wordls« scores another artistic triumph in the band’s otherwise richly expressive discography.
»Walk Between Worlds« is yet another album full of songs that reached their final stage of composition over a span of several years. In terms of artistic statement, it most obviously follows on from its predecessor “Big Music” (In Dreams, The Signal And The Noise). Regardless, Charlie Burchill’s guitar is once again somewhat more prominent and recognizable in the arrangements than on the previous album, which almost drowned in all the glittering, highly vibrant layering of bombastic synthesizing. The sound of the eighties pop era has probably not been preserved so distinctly, in an artistic sense, by any other band as it has by Simple Minds.
Most of the new songs are of older origin and were rearranged and re-recorded during the making of the new album. The song The Signal And The Noise was actually meant to be included on the album »Big Music«, and its musical character reflects that. Then there are the songs that came about back in 2010 and were initially intended for Kerr’s second solo album, the Lostboy project, such as Summer, the phenomenal Utopia, and also The Sense Of Discovery and Nostalgia. Speaking of Nostalgia and Utopia, Kerr said years ago that Simple Minds were planning to release a double album, but that »double album« ended up simply becoming »Walk Between Worlds«. A particularly strong moment on the album is the opening itself, with the song Magic. This song is twenty years old, and its lead melody was created during the recording of the album »Good News From the Next World«, that is, back in 1995. It’s incredible where the band has ultimately evolved this song over two decades of its life. The band wanted to use it already on the album »Black And White 050505«, and later for »Graffiti Soul« (2009). The song Barrowland Star carries the most obvious whiff of dabbling with traditional Celtic-sounding folk elements (musically speaking). It also boasts a strikingly charming and beautifully characterized closing guitar solo from Charlie Burchill, which definitely stands out among all the solo ornaments on this album. The first version of this song was recorded as the instrumental Celtic Strings, found on the b-side of the single She’s A River. So the original is twenty years old. One of the most distinguished creations is probably the title track itself: with rich orchestral arrangements and a refined touch of acoustics, the album reaches its yearning peak through this song in conjuring up mysticism. It has the pedigree to become, with its ravenous grip, an absolute live favorite among the band’s fans. The additional (bonus) tracks shouldn’t be underestimated either, as they hit with the same expressive power as the regular points of the album. With the exception of the live version of the »Scottish folk« Dirty Old Town by Ewan MacColl, where Sarah Brown joins Kerr for a vocal duet, the album is held in a tense finale of atmospheric pomp by the excellent Silent Kiss, which is the lost song of the album »Big Music«, followed by Angel Underneath My Skin, which was written back in 2002, that is, around the release of the album »Cry«, and was meant for inclusion on the album »Black And White 050505«.
So Simple Minds aren’t letting up! »Walk Between Worlds« bursts with a convincingly stamped expressive character, the kind that only the unique eclecticism of Scotland’s champions of atmospheric art rock and highly intelligent pop music can carry. On their February tour, the band already played the new album in its entirety. Rightly so. It’s an achievement with which Simple Minds prove that, even in the mature years of their career, they remain untamed artists and great gentlemen of refined sonic softness and arranging finesse. Unlike their contemporaries U2, fame never ate their brains, and it’s precisely this symbolism of firmly focused art pose, which Simple Minds have kept up over the years, that keeps the band’s musical character forever young and evergreen.
Lineup
Jim Kerr – vocals
Charlie Burchill – guitar, keyboards, programming
Ged Grimes – bass guitar
Mel Gaynor – drums, percussion on track no. 7
Cherisse Osei – drums, percussion on tracks no. 8 and no. 11
Sarah Brown – vocals on track no. 5, backing vocals on tracks no. 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11
Gordy Goudie – acoustic guitar on tracks no. 2, 3, 6 and 11
Catherine AD aka The Anchoress – backing vocals on tracks no. 3 and 10
Peter-John Vettese – piano, string arrangements on track no. 6
Owen Parker – keyboards, programming on tracks no. 2 and 8
Andy Wright – backing vocals on tracks no. 2, 8 and 10
Hatty Parker – backing vocals on track no. 8
Emily Parker – backing vocals on track no. 8
Production
Andy Wright
Tracklist
1. Magic
2. Summer
3. Utopia
4. The Signal and the Noise
5. In Dreams
6. Barrowland Star
7. Walk Between Worlds
8. Sense of Discovery
9. Silent Kiss*
10. Angel Underneath My Skin*
11. Dirty Old Town*
*…. bonus tracks
