Jack Feeny reviews: Echo and the Bunnymen

	Ocean Rain (1984)
	"If my heart is a war its soldiers are dead "
	Best Tracks: Silver, Crystal Days, The Killing Moon, Ocean Rain

These days Ian McCulloch, like a bedraggled acoholic ghost, haunts the Liverpool night life. It is hard to spend any time out and about in the more bohemian haunts of the city without coming away with some story about encountering the sleazy washed-up cokehead. My story is a rather more curious one in that a girl I know keeps sending desperate text messages to my mobile phone thinking for some inexplicable reason it belongs to the 'Mac'. Anyway, his current desperate attempts to laud his 'legendary' status are all the more embarrassing given it rests almost entirely upon one good song. Indeed, I'm even loathe to praise "The Killing Moon" too much given McCulloch himself describes it as 'the greatest song ever, sung by the greatest voice ever'. But, what the hell, it is a cracking song. However, the fact that the Bunnymen get elevated to the pedestal of the great Liverpool bands of all time only leaves me to suspect there is only really one pedestal and really only one band deserving to be on it. Indeed, my suspicions are, despite the loud and proud boasting of the city's council and its inhabitants, apart from that seven year period John, Paul, George and Ringo made a little song and dance Liverpool has added precisely nothing to twentieth century art. It is typical of the self-mythological nature of the city that a band as mediocre as the Bunnymen should be so celebrated and mostly, it seems, by their own members. Like most of their Scouse peers and even successors the Bunnymen cannot do straight up rock'n'roll. Instead, it has to be invested with Liverpool's idiosyncratic brand of psychedelia. In other words, nonsensical lyrics and quirky sixties arrangements. McCullough, I believe, regards the Velvet Underground, and not the Beatles, as the greatest band ever but the depth of his message is a paddling pool compared to the issues Lou Reed tackled and the eloquence with which he did it. Similarly, the music actually has more in common with the hippy bands of the era that were the very antithesis to the debauched wall of sound the Velvets hid behind. The b-side "Angels and Devils" (included here as a bonus track) does imitate the Velvet's junkie drive but only in the limpest and most sycophantic way. This album does have its moments, though, with the opening "Silver" and "Crystal Days" being pop songs of reasonable melodic success. Indeed, it is really only when McCulloch goes too far up his own arse that things really start to stink, particularly the Godawful "Thorn of Crowns" which presents the Mac giving us his drunken karaoke impression of Jim Morrison. Given that Jim Morrison at his worst actually resembled a drunk karaoke artist one does not require much imagination to realise just how bad McCulloch's impersonation is. The highlight of the album, of course, is "The Killing Moon". One suspects they simply wrote one great song and then scratched their heads as to how to get enough songs to fill up the rest of the album. In any event, it IS a wonderfully epic performance, with a haunting arrangement and, yes, a powerful performance from McCulloch. Indeed, the arrangement is SO much better than everything else on here one wonders whether they hired someone more talented than themselves to sort it out. As a result, this album joins the ranks of long-players effectively saved from complete irrelevance by the inclusion of one classic song. The album closes with the title track, which is commendable for McCulloch never exceeding the boundaries of subtlety and inoffensiveness, but, really, once "The Killing Moon" is over you're already thinking about which CD to put on next. A decent album, then, but almost entirely on the basis of one great, great song, with a few acceptable pop numbers pulling their weight from behind. And next time you see Ian McCulloch drunk and dishevelled in Liverpool city centre ask him "hey, aren't you that bloke who did that Donnie Darko song?". He'll love it, I swear.

On the basis of this album alone, I can see why you'd be so quick to dismiss this band. It was made out to be their 'big art statement' record by the press, their record label (who took out trade ads proclaiming it 'The Greatest Album Ever Made'), and, most of all, themselves. Whatever. Aside from a few decent singles ("Silver" and "Seven Seas", which are catchy but unbearably dumb, and "The Killing Moon", which rules tha school) and one of the best production jobs of 1984, this album is a total snore. Ian McCulloch's Doors obsession reaches its all-time peak, with HORRID results ("Thorn Of Crowns" and "Nocturnal Me" in particular, everywhere else in general), half-baked song ideas run rampant... You know the score. Everything else is either plagiarized or completely lacking focus.
It's a shame, because these guys REALLY were a fantastic band once. Don't let Ocean Rain and McCullough's miserable fate fool you; their first 3 albums are astonishing slices of wonderfully esoteric (yet totally accessible) post-punk, and I hear their stamp on everyone from U2 to The Cure to Franz Ferdinand and (especially) Coldplay. The Bunnymen were never as brilliant or influential as, say, Joy Division or The Smiths, but they weren't far behind.
You're right about Ian, though. The man's a lost cause. His many habits have destroyed his voice, he's dried up creatively, and he's a total douche bag in person. Hell, if you really want to rip into him, you should review his latest solo record Slideling. That... THING is the biggest piece of complete SHIT ever squirted out by any artist, in any field.

I haven't heard Ocean Rain but the greatest hits album Ballyhoo would probably deserve a 6 too. The tracks are in chronological order and it starts off great, with "Rescue" and "Do It Clean" representing the fabulous post-punk sound Alex Mortland spoke of, but then it drones off into a load of boring self-assured rubbish (I let third track "Villier's Terrace" play for a few secs, because it has a pretty intro, but then skip it). Things pick up with "The Cutter" and "The Killing Moon" but overall I'm left thinking that Echo & The Bunnymen started off great, got crap, regained listenability for a couple of singles later on and eventually diminished.
And Ian McCulloch had a solo career! Just the idea of that gives me a chuckle.

I first saw the Bunnymen in Erics Club Liverpool in 1978. Just the three of them and a drum machine called Echo. Hence the name. From that moment when they supported the Cure who were horrendously late they just gripped me with a fervour that still sends shivers down my spine even now. On Ocean Rain you have missed out one of their greatest tracks. "My Kingdom" is just a suberb song. The combination of macs overblown but beautifully sung lyrics and Wil sergeants Tuneful guitar are in a World of their own musically. Yes There are a few duff tracks on this album and so there are on most albums but this band for me were the best band of the late seventies and early eighties. Rock on Mac where ever you are. Bring back Erics.