If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Simple Minds have pulled on to Satan's expressway. The Scottish Minds have always meant well – even the arena-rock gestures they adopted in the 1985 breakthrough LP Once Upon a Time seemed earnest – and on the surface anyway, they sound better than ever on their eleventh album. Street Fighting Years is an attempt to add some very specific political and moral consciousness-raising to Simple Minds' anthemic brand of Eighties art rock, but it ends up just adding to the confusion.

Jim Kerr's voice seems deeper and more resonant, and producer Trevor Horn's synthesized wall of sound seems right up the band's alley. At first. Once you get past its initial room-filling impact, Street Fighting Years sounds a little too clean. Horn has buffed the electronic texture of Mick MacNeil's keyboards so studio smooth that every song – whether it's a chugging, multilayered call to arms ("Take a Step Back") or a floating, ambient meditation ("Let It All Come Down") – virtually slides out of the speakers.

"This Is Your Land" survives the lacquering: MacNeil and guitarist Charlie Burchill lock satisfyingly into one of their quieter signature riffs, using gentle repetition to underscore Kerr's plaintive singing and lyrics. Kerr expresses a deeply rooted, nonpartisan sense of patriotism calmly and succinctly, and Lou Reed's guest appearance actually fits into the song's flow.

"Mandela Day" was composed for the Nelson Mandela benefit concert in London last year on the imprisoned South African freedom fighter's birthday; but by chanting, "Mandela's free, Mandela's free," over and over again on the song's celebratory chorus, Kerr creates the tragically mistaken impression that Nelson Mandela has already been released from prison – just what the authorities in Pretoria would like us to believe. When he finally cries, "Set Mandela free," near the end, it comes about three minutes too late. And the similarly directed numbers that follow – a stately, straight reading of Peter Gabriel's "Biko" and a pointed reinterpretation of the traditional Gaelic "Belfast Child," complete with bagpipes – aren't quite enough to get Street Fighting Days back on the right track. Perhaps the line "Mandela's free" will ring true one day. For now, Street Fighting Years stands as an unfortunate example of politicized rock at its most simple-minded. (RS 556-557)

MARK COLEMAN