Every time Simple Minds bring out an album these days, the familiar promo talk from leader Jim Kerr kicks in which more or less says ‘this is our best album since New Gold Dream’ or of that period when the Minds (according to their website) thought they were German. The background to that comment being that industry people, fans and even Jim Kerr himself thought the band were more interesting in their Kraut-rock years roughly between 1980’s Empire and Dance and 1982’s (holy grail of their catalogue) New Gold Dream.
On Graffiti Soul’s opener ‘Moscow Underground’ it seems for a fleeting moment that once and for all Kerr is right with its evocative European noir electro rock chugging along quite nicely indeed and backed up by lyrics like "I wanna cross the borders of control" and "take me to the shrine that’s in your basement". ‘Rockets’ takes us from Euro-dark to light as fast as its name implies, but it’s business as usual and nothing that couldn’t have come off any SM studio album from the last 25 years. Likewise, ‘Stars Will Lead the Way’ while beautifully done could be a close relation to their 1986 hit 'All the Things She Said'.
The album is pepper sprayed with the kind of fuzzy guitar effects and distorted vocals that INXS and U2 were utilising back in the early nineties and a good majority is in the same key, which always makes for an album where most tracks sound like the one you’ve just heard. That’s not to say Graffiti Soul is bad, just very familiar: ‘Blood Type O’ also has an air of nostalgia, kind of Minds past with pro tools.
The main problems that Simple Minds can’t re-create their glory days are fairly obvious: they are no longer young and hungry upstarts from Glasgow and since 1984’s career nosedive Sparkle in the Rain they’ve brought Charlie Burchill’s guitar to the fore, which has held on to power with steel teeth! That said, perhaps industry, fans and band can afford to be less hard on themselves, it’s easy to look back with rose tinted glasses and although Graffiti Soul is no Glittering Prize, more Neapolis - the sequel, it’s worth remembering that past standards such as Empires and Dance weren’t great all the way through either, even when they thought they were German.
On Graffiti Soul’s opener ‘Moscow Underground’ it seems for a fleeting moment that once and for all Kerr is right with its evocative European noir electro rock chugging along quite nicely indeed and backed up by lyrics like "I wanna cross the borders of control" and "take me to the shrine that’s in your basement". ‘Rockets’ takes us from Euro-dark to light as fast as its name implies, but it’s business as usual and nothing that couldn’t have come off any SM studio album from the last 25 years. Likewise, ‘Stars Will Lead the Way’ while beautifully done could be a close relation to their 1986 hit 'All the Things She Said'.
The album is pepper sprayed with the kind of fuzzy guitar effects and distorted vocals that INXS and U2 were utilising back in the early nineties and a good majority is in the same key, which always makes for an album where most tracks sound like the one you’ve just heard. That’s not to say Graffiti Soul is bad, just very familiar: ‘Blood Type O’ also has an air of nostalgia, kind of Minds past with pro tools.
The main problems that Simple Minds can’t re-create their glory days are fairly obvious: they are no longer young and hungry upstarts from Glasgow and since 1984’s career nosedive Sparkle in the Rain they’ve brought Charlie Burchill’s guitar to the fore, which has held on to power with steel teeth! That said, perhaps industry, fans and band can afford to be less hard on themselves, it’s easy to look back with rose tinted glasses and although Graffiti Soul is no Glittering Prize, more Neapolis - the sequel, it’s worth remembering that past standards such as Empires and Dance weren’t great all the way through either, even when they thought they were German.