Album Review, Simple Minds, "Graffiti Soul"

This is the sound of the New Wave rock legends emerging from the shadows with a re-energized and sparkling cluster of sophisticated rock, plus a dash of shimmering pop.

There is a cohesion and swagger to Graffiti Soul that echoes the soundscapes of Simple Minds' classic 80s albums.

Lyrically, frontman Jim Kerr explores the themes of rebirth and redemption, especially on the soaring and hypnotic This Is It, where he sings, "I'll organize myself, with all the chances missed"—the impassioned cry of a band that was in many ways cheated by destiny of the role allocated to U2.

Elsewhere, the likes of Blood Type O and the title track reveal a depth and a range to their music that Bono and co are no longer capable of.

Mark Liddell
Metropolis
10th July, 2009

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!