Good News From The Next World

SIMPLE MINDS: “Good News From The Next World” (Virgin)

TRULY, THE eighties revival is upon is in earnest. For a while it looked like it might go away, but what with the Human League heading for number one, The Flying Pickets back on strike duty and Sade once again soothing yuppie hearts, there’s no avoiding it. Enter Simple Minds.

Depending on where you stood during the decade many of us wish time would forget (at least for a little while longer), Simple Minds were either the new messiahs of British rock or the most over-rated and pretentious combo ever to stalk the vastness of a stadium stage. The critics mainly opted for the latter view but the votes that count made them stars in equal proportion to their grandiose ambitions.

In the beginning things looked promising but after languishing briefly in the art-rock, new-romantic, post-punk aftermath they staked a claim to U2’s anthemic turf, quickly becoming the quintessential pomp rockers. What they lacked in songs they also eschewed in subtleties. Simple Minds’ sound was built on propulsive riffs, layers of synth embellishments, slap bass and a big cracking snare drum. Epic was their middle name and rockist was their game — and it proved to be a successful and enduring blueprint.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” would seem to be the modus operandi for Good News From The Next World. With a video showing the band performing atop the Eiffel Tower (where else?), ‘She’s A River’, the opener and current single neatly sets out the strategy for what follows. Instantly familiar, it chugs along for a full five and a half minutes before clashing to a halt. ‘Night Moves’ is better, with a more hummable hook and less exhausting backing while ‘Hypnotised’ trawls a similar ambient vein with some Pink Floyd-style texturising and Dave Gilmour-like guitar work.

“I want to die, I want to live again, I want to keep on keeping on,” Jim Kerr thunders on ‘And The Band Played On’ over an admittedly affecting riff, with his vocal passions reaching new heights on the final cut, ‘This Time’.

With nothing approaching the tuneful accessibility of ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ nor the pop sensibilities of ‘Promised You A Miracle’, this is hardly the Simple Minds’ gameplan at its most effective. Apart from some hi-tech, studio sound-shaping Good News From The Next World is, in truth, more of the same from the last world.

It’s an album that might grow on you with greater familiarity but right now it feels like the very least you might have expected them to come up with after a prolonged rest and recreation period.

• Colm O’Hare