[8][9] Associated with the British postpunk-scene at the time along with bands such as Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen, on Empires and Dance Simple Minds also took influence from disco and electronic music by artists such as Donna Summer, Kraftwerk and Grace Jones they heard in German nightclubs.

The album includes lengthier, structured songs such as "I Travel", "This Fear of Gods" and "Thirty Frames a Second", as well as a number of more experimental tracks, such as "Constantinople Line", "Twist/Run/Repulsion" and "Kant-Kino".

The lyrics to "This Fear of Gods" was partly inspired by a story by Jorge Luis Borges Kerr recently had read.

A 12" release backed with "Kaleidoscope" and the original version of "Film Theme" were also issued, but the single failed to reach the UK chart.

The track however gained a popularity in the American club scene and subsequently entered the Billboard disco chart at no.80 in February 1981.

Ian Cranna in Smash Hits gave the album a 9 out of 10 rating, praising "one of Britain's most gifted and imaginative young bands" for moving into a more dance-orientated synthesizer dominated style "without losing any of their melodic instinct or emotional impact.

The result has the dance rhythms of disco, the energy of new wave, haunting melodies with fleeting lyrical glimpses of a troubled modern Europe (but minus the usual "modernist" posing) - and a touch of genius at its very human heart.

He highlighted "I Travel" as one of "the great disco-rock songs" and "the magnificent" "This Fear of Gods" as the band's "most impressive work to date", and concluded: "Simple Minds have invented their own ways, melodramatic yet modernist.

Twenty years later, Empires and Dance would be cited as a key influence on Futurology, the Manics' twelfth album.

I remember reading Jim Kerr going on about the Baader-Meinhof gang, and the Red Brigade, and trying to make sense of all these conflicting ideologies.