So-called fans of Simple Minds who have ignored the new material released over the past decade have been missing out by restricting their love of the band to greatest hits gigs and boxed sets of the earliest albums. Black & White 050505, released in 2005, stripped the bombast back to a scuzzier, darker sound while 2009's Graffiti Soul recaptured some of the spikier energy of the band who strutted around the stage in the early 1980s, with Charlie Burchill's guitars to the fore.
Big Music, however, is the closest any new material has come to sounding like classic Simple Minds. Despite a title that points to the stadium-sized repertoire of Alive And Kicking and Belfast Child, it virtually picks up from where New Gold Dream left off. Current single Honest Town is a close cousin of Someone Somewhere In Summertime, its sense of a song coming full circle partly aided by Chvrches' Iain Cook, one of a generation of younger bands claiming the Minds as key inspiration, acting as co-writer.
As an album, Big Music is heavier on the keyboards and dancefloor beats, the hypnotically charged opening duo of Blindfolded and Midnight Walking immediately setting the bar high. Eighties retro-electro with 21st-century production cutting edge.
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