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In life, sometimes you lose your way. You find yourself becoming a poor imitation of who you once were.
In life, sometimes things happen on their own and you no longer know who you are.
It happens often, it happens to many. It happens to the people you meet on the street, the girl sitting across from you on a subway train, the man in a car stuck in traffic, the lifelong friend who suddenly vanishes into thin air.
And so it happened to the Simple Minds, who in the eighties were the most credible rivals of U2, wrote songs that made their mark and that millions of people sang in unison in stadiums all over the world.
Then nothing, the slow and relentless fall into emptiness, old age, fatigue, and unlikely attempts to reinvent themselves that seemed on one hand pathetic self-celebrations and on the other grotesque caricatures of themselves with twenty more years on their shoulders.
But sometimes suddenly, without any specific reason, you find your way again, in a moment everything seems to return to how it was, there comes a moment when you suddenly remember the exact point where everything ended so you can resume the journey in the right direction. And the journey of Simple Minds seems to be able to resume, this time credibly, from this album titled Black & White 050505 which was released almost quietly a few days ago.
Introduced by a nice single, Home, an elegant and engaging rock-pop even if not hair-raising, the album was received by critics as a miracle, a bolt from the blue. I, however, admit that I bought it out of sheer curiosity and due to a lack of other more interesting options over these weeks, convinced that I would harshly criticize it, almost never agreeing with the judgments of specialized magazines in the field.
And yet today I apologize for the sin of prejudice and bow my head in front of my superficiality. Perhaps because I didn't expect it, perhaps because I'm also reaching my thirties, but this album, I always speak the truth, is not bad. It really seems like a step back, not because there is an '80s revival atmosphere, but because the album sounds modern and polished, with the same creative spirit as before but with renewed energy and originality in writing, and magically the feeling of fatigue from the last 15 years has disappeared.
Nine songs of medium to high level, following each other diverse and cohesive over the course of an album with no frills, pleasant and well-crafted. Particularly noteworthy is the 5th track Underneath The Ice nestled in the center of the album, beautiful and able to make an impact. It alternates tracks that make your head move with darker and more intense tracks that move your heart instead.
The atmosphere seems to suggest a continual lifting and then collapsing again, a continuous sighing in melancholy that is immediately concealed by bursts of renewed energy.
But essentially the feeling that remains with me at the end is a conscious and serene sadness with barely concealed symptoms of self-destruction.
The CD booklet is indeed a strange triumph of bullets, sharp blades, thorns, reptiles, and pierced hearts and phrases written in red like I WOULD BURN MYSELF
have an effect.
At the end of the album, beware, there comes the bullet, the one you don't expect: the 9th track Dolphins is simply stunning, it goes straight to your heart and leaves you breathless and speechless. A six-minute long hard and dark ballad that leaves you with a lump in your throat and slams the door. An incredible song that alone is worth the whole album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Stay Visible (05:19)
The road opens wide
And there is space here for two of us
If I could slip under the wire
We’d wait here
Just stay here while
Slumped, my body’s tired and this fear
It never lets me sleep
In your smile
This trial elates
And in your eyes
I see mothers open gates
If fortune could smile
there’d be room here for two of us
And I would burn myself through the wires
With this hate
Concentrated
Unearthed
Disparate
All of this time
Once in a while
If peace held for two of us
Or if we could show mercy awhile
White patience
Transcending
This coldness, never ending, thru time
Because if home still matters
And if these bones,
were not so battered
What state then
I’m so desperate,
Stuck within a hollow shell, in some forgotten state
Come tear the dirt from my eyes
02 Home (04:23)
God gave me travelling shoes
God gave me the wanderer’s eye
God gave a few gold coins to help me to the other side
Looked around and said - be careful how the small things grow
God gives me travelling shoes
And I knew that it was time to go.
He then sent in the ship at night
To take me to the hidden port
Found me the key at last
To open up the prison door
Brought down blackbirds wings
Gifted me with beggars eyes
Sent in the jackals
To tell me I should say bye, bye, bye
I’m home
Home
Home, Home, Home
And I’m home
Home
Home, Home, Home
But I'm miles and miles and miles and miles and miles away
Oh where can I hide ?
God gave me one last chance
Gave me one last reprieve
He then gave me hunger
Gave me the air to breath
Gave one suit case
Gave one last goodbye
Gave me travelling shoes
And without them I would surely die, die ,die
Home
Home
Home, Home, Home
Home
Home
Home, Home, Home
Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles away
Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles away
Oh where do I go ?
Oh where can I hide ?
Home
Home
Home, Home, Home
And I’m home
Home
Home, Home, Home
And I'm miles away
Miles away
Im running far away
03 Stranger (04:08)
Tell me why.
Do you know what were looking for?
Any truth in the rumours I ignore?
Tell me why, I still deny?
Anytime secrets, in every sound.
I can keep my feet up off the ground.
I'm in the air, reeling everywhere.
There's something new and I must say.
It makes me feel so super real. Just look and you'll find.
We are drifting through space and time.
Stranger, beautiful stranger,
Come tell me if you are, the silent star, Explain!
Stranger, beautiful stranger,
I wonder if you are the silent star,
Explain.
Tell me why, do you know what we're looking for?
Any truth in the rumours I ignore?
Then tell me why I still deny?
Summertime,
Winter,
Moonlight,
And the Sun.
I get the feeling this has just begun,
And yet it feels so super real.
Look and you'll find,
We are moving through space and time.
Tell me who you are.
Tell me who you are.
09 Dolphins (05:56)
Dolphins
When they say that
Say it's wise
They say that
Now is the only time
To reach for what remains
To look o'er what's the same
Dolphins swim around
Dolphins drag me down
drag me down
Say that, it's the truth
There's an oceans
right in front of you
Dolphins, hit the sound
And when dolphins circle around
If it seems so
Like the world juts in
Those dolphins, drag me down
drag me down
(machtig tussenstuk)
Say that, say its wise
Say that it' the only vice
Yet you say so what remains?
And look so uncertain
And dolphins look around
And then dolphins drag me down
And when it looks through
the world juts in
Dolphins drag me down
Drag me down
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Other reviews
By rosharris
"Stay Visible starts and a shiver runs down your spine: an eerie keyboard intro and then an explosion of rhythm and guitar with a divinely singing Kerr."
"The rhythm section is once again excellent, not only Mel Gaynor, but also Eddy Duffy, a great discovery after the appetizer offered in Our Secrets Are The Same."
