Simple Minds - Graffiti Soul (2009)

By Edward Raynor

Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr is in a mood to look back on the new album "Graffiti Soul".

It starts with notes in the CD booklet, remembering the band's early days when Kerr was just eighteen years old. He explains that his younger self was asked where the words and music came from.

The cocky young lad tells the interested journalist it comes from ''somewhere deep''.

Well, if the music is from somewhere deep, it appears to be channeling U2 circa 1991 in the first minute or so of the album.

Opener Moscow Underground could have been lifted straight from "Achtung Baby". It has that dirty sound that suggests Berlin in the years after the Wall came down.

The album's title track also tries to capture a U2 sound of old, while track Blood Type O could have been rescued from the cutting room floor following work on U2 albums "Zooropa" or "Pop".

A word of warning is needed at this point.

While these tracks are reminiscent of earlier U2 work, it somehow lacks warmth, emotion and conviction. It seems to come from a band going through the motions while borrowing heavily from an era when it was still a household name.

It's retro without a cause. It's all so safe and heartless. Check track Stars Will Lead the Way, a disjointed effort which could have been dreamed up to help Genesis with an unsuccessful comeback.

Borrowing from another source entirely is the early part of track Light Travels. It's not 1980s stadium rock or a 1980s band trying to reinvent itself for the subsequent decade.

Instead, the vocals are an attempt to copy Moby, with a restraint that takes all the Jim Kerr out of the equation. It is presented as a power ballad drained of emotion.

Shoulders need to be shrugged when listening to Kiss and Fly. The name sounds like something soaring from Roxette, with the promise of a rip-snorting vocal performance.

What it actually is falls short of that mark. Try calling it a filler because it's kinder than calling it a failure. And it is better to say nothing about bonus track Rockin' in the Free World. It's boring and pointless.

This is tough talk. Is the album really that bad? Well, it's not good. In the 1980s, Simple Minds could come up with some decent pop songs. Now, they sound like the can't make up their minds. This is simply not a cohesive set of songs, nor a likeable set. It just begs an explanation.

At the end of Kerr's CD booklet recollections, the journalist in question calls the eighteen-year-old a clever little prick. The question is, is he still clever or simply borrowing from other people and watering it down?

RATING: 3 out of 5

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