To me, Simple Minds are largely associated with the prog epic that is Alive And Kicking, but here, in an earlier phase, the songs are not as complex, closer to the rest of the synth-pop that’s around at the time, but with a certain krautrock element to them
Someone Somewhere In Summertime for example has an ongoing synth bass that gives a sense of tension and drives the track forwards with a Kraftwerk-like momentum. Like some of U2’s tracks, there’s an unresolved tension to the music, a track that feels like it’s building to a climax that never arrives (U2 apparently count Simple Minds as an inspiration). I thought that this might be because it makes use of 7th or 9th chords, or maybe Sus4 – all chords that provoke a tension that needs to be resolved by a return to the root, but on looking it up it doesn’t - more a flip between root and relative minor. Jim Kerr’s vocal melody also suggests a sense of creeping menace, that gets unleashed in the chorus.
Big Sleep, meanwhile, has a little bit of a Tangerine Dream feel to the underlying synth patterns. Somebody Up There Likes You is an instrumental piece that feels a little bit spacy, and there’s also a trance-like sense to Hunter And The Hunted, not least thanks to some guest keyboard soloing from Herbie Hancock.
Jim Kerr one of the more expressive New Wave voices, up there with Martin Fry of ABC, or Nick Heywood of Haircut 100. I’ll be honest, though, I probably couldn’t tell them apart if you gave me snippets of each to choose between. This was a pretty good album, though. Slightly different to the other synth-pop offerings in that it was slightly darker, more synth and less pop. There’s still a pleasing complexity to the songs (including the single I Promised You A Miracle) without yet falling into the later theatrics.
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