Empires and Dance [Original recording reissued] [Original recording remastered]

Opening single I Travel remains the most electronic single here, a pulsing pop euphoria that is like Trans-Europe Express on ecstasy, or rather, like reading international newspapers on the trans europe express while listening to Trans Europe Express on ecstasy: "Timeless leaders stand so tall...Asia steals a new born son/Evacuees and Refugees, Presidents and Monarchies/Travel round, I Travel round/Decadence and Pleasure Towns/Tragedies, Luxuries, Statues, Parks & Galleries...In Central Europe some men are marching...I Travel/Euro-Bureau-Interpol"- the missing link between Trans Europe Express & White Car in Germany for sure...

The other 'electronic' tracks advance on 1979's Changeling- Celebrate sounds like Chic playing Gary Numan (robo-funk at its finest) & Thirty Frames a Second, which is an epic Krautrock-inflected epic that reminds me of Dick K Philip's World-Clock-Counter, its reversing SF-themes. This is the direction Bowie abandoned after Low- 30 Frames works really well against brief instrumental Kant-Kino, which is very Side 2 of Low...

The album as a whole is a darker affair- centred around Burchill's angular guitar, Forbes brooding bass & McGee's metronomic rhythms. Today I Died Again sounds more like Magazine than U2- a huge sound with vague fascistic lyrics equal to Joy Division ("The clothes he wears date back to some war...Back to a year, back to a youth/Of men in church and drug cabarets...Paint me a picture of bodies in sand/Presidents can fall...") The overriding themes of war feature heavily hear and recur thoughout the album; by fascisitic I don't mean this advocates it, merely depicts it- like several Joy Division tracks (Walked in Line, Dead Souls) & films such as Cabaret, The Damned & Salo.

This Fear of Gods is an epic rhythm centred track that precedes 23 Skidoo's Coup- itself an influence (cough!) on Chemical Brothers'Block Rockin'Beats. Kerr waxes sinister repetitions around the rhytm as Burchill and MacNeil offer riffs and keyboard drones between (MacNeil's is very Trans Europe Express!) God knows what Kerr's singing about though:"Someone singing in the showers...Violence & Vivisection...Fear is fast, I'm turning white now...". A suitably huge track...

Forbes bass takes us into the carnival waltz of Capital City, which has the feel of Brecht/Weill in a post-Kraftwerk world; Constantinople Line is even better- Kerr almost rapping over the stop/start rhythms "Hey waiter,I'm First Class!/Hey waiter, what State is this?/I See a land crawl by night...These Stations are useful/These Stations We Love Them...Newspapers, Encounters, Confusion"- Twist/Run/Repulsion takes us into another place, one that precedes the chattering samples of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, prior to an odd series of mantras from Kerr (e.g."Contort, Contort, Contort, Contort...")

Final track Room is probably the most melodic track here, predicting the pop of New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84)- pity it's so brief! McGee offers subtle percussion to the shimmering guitars and measured bass- if Primal Scream or Radiohead did this now they'd get critical plaudits! This is 1980 remember! Kerr sounds both alien and soulful- a brilliant conclusion to a great, if dark album: "I only live here (echoes!)"...

Empires & Dance sounds great in this remastered version, the missing link between Japan and Joy Division; it also ranks alongside Sons&Fascination/Sister Feelings Call (both 1981) & New Gold Dream (1982) as the truly great Simple Minds albums and their creative peak prior to shifting into stadium gear. Pity that b-sides like Kaleidoscope didn't make it here though!

First track I travel is a flop single but it has a pulsy feeling to it . Next up is Today I Died Again and this is where the classic Simple Minds sound is in its infancy .

Celebrate is next and that was also a flop single . It had a military type beat to it . This fear of Gods is the fourth track and it has got to be the funkiest on the album although if you listen to the lyrics they are utterly confusing . He talks of "someone singing in a shower" and "violence and vivisection". Strange if not deliberately .

Capital City and Constantinople are a little too weird at first listen but you will get into them . Again the lyrics are strange "Hey waiter I'm first class Hey waiter where are we now Hey waiter don't talk back".

Twist/Run/Repulsion is one of those songs where if you miss out on one little word the song won't mean anything as Jim Kerr starts talking really fast and says "I'm lying in bed you can play fear you can play me fear" followed by "If caution is life then caution is sin". Something maybe they forgot to look at in later albums . The song sounds like a train going at full speed which backs up this French girl who must be talking at a reception desk as they taped it .

Then there is Thirty Frames A Second and Kant Kino . They stream together so fluidly that you wouldn't realize that they are different tracks . But the lyrics for Thirty Frames are one of the best I've heard . Room caps off an extraordinary album .

This was their first real album in many ways . They had created their sound or identity on this album . You could buy Life In A Day or Real to Real Cacophony but this was the one for them . Soon they left Arista and went to Virgin and soon the records went on a downward slump . Although having said that they made some great gems like Someone Somewhere and Promised you a miracle and All the things she said . Check them out as well .

One final thing , it might take a few listens to get into Empires and Dance but if you go ahead with it you'll reap rewards .