Echo And The Bunnymen – Evergreen (25 Year Anniversary Edition) (1997/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:15:30 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Alternative, Indie
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © London Music Stream
The cover alone is a dead giveaway, echoing as it does the cover of Crocodiles, with what looks like a set of trees and a car in place of De Freitas. But that telling and unavoidable absence alone puts the promise and problem of Echo’s comeback album in perspective – McCulloch and Sergeant had been working together again and Pattinson returned to the fold, but without De Freitas something remained unavoidably absent. Replacement drummer Michael Lee fills in adequately but not completely, rendering what was a special group something less so. The remaining core three discharge their duties well enough, but the focus is unavoidably on McCulloch this time around, rendering Sergeant and Pattinson to the status of talented backing players and making Evergreen seem like an extension of McCulloch’s solo career more than anything. While Sergeant in particular shows many flashes of the brilliance of Echo’s first phase, his work is more conventional here, perhaps the result of his experimental tendencies with his solo project, Glide. As an album Evergreen is closest to Ocean Rain due to the liberal appearance of the London Symphony Orchestra throughout, sometimes with impressive results, though without achieving the total heights of artistry of that earlier collection. There’s nothing quite like “The Killing Moon” or “Ocean Rain” itself this time around. For all that, when Evergreen shines at its best, it’s still an attractive piece of work. The album’s most successful number, the gently epic “Nothing Lasts Forever,” gets an extra boost from an uncredited backing singer, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, while “I Want to Be There (When You Come),” the title track, and the moody “Just a Touch Away” kick up some smoke.
Read moreEcho and The Bunnymen – Songs to Learn & Sing (1985/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:30 minutes | 914 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © WM UK
Liverpool’s favorite lads Echo & the Bunnymen battled the cathartic reign of the Smiths and the enigmatic synth pop of Depeche Mode and New Order throughout the ’80s movement of redesigned post-punk, and they became a staple image as well. Songs to Learn & Sing marked the Bunnymen’s cemented place in new wave and relished the crooning ambience of frontman Ian McCulloch. This collection recalls the rise and steadfast career of the band, highlighting the Bunnymen’s work between 1980 and 1985 and collecting the most prominent tracks that made the band the waxed poetics the British press hailed them to be (specifically on older cuts like “Do It Clean” and “Rescue”). Frequent use of the band’s classic drum machine or “echo” was also a major feature in Bunnymen tracks, especially on the vibrant dance cuts “Never Stop” and “Back of Love.” With various production work from the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie and Chameleons and Zoo labelmates David Balfe and Bill Drummond (the KLF), Echo & the Bunnymen achieved great cult status throughout the ’80s stream of U.K. pop music. Songs to Learn & Sing is a solid and comprehensive collection of the band’s material, also introducing the previously unissued album track “Bring on the Dancing Horses,” which was featured on the soundtrack to the Molly Ringwald film Pretty in Pink (1986).
– MacKenzie Wilson
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Echo and The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here (1981/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:10 minutes | 972 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © WM UK
“one of the most superior articulations of ‘rock’ form in living memory.”
– Barney Hoskyns (Music Journalist)
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Echo and The Bunnymen – Crocodiles (1980/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 32:56 minutes | 726 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © WM UK
“[The band] deliver attractive melodies with dark and moody (but not obscure) personal lyrics, all turned into compulsive listening by a driving beat, ringing guitars and a hauntingly emotional voice.”
– Ian Cranna (Smash Hits)
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Echo and The Bunnymen – Ocean Rain (1984/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:09 minutes | 785 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © WM UK
Originally released in May 1984, Ocean Rain itself, features the original album which includes the singles ‘The Killing Moon’, ‘Silver’ and ‘Seven Seas’. The second LP contains eight bonus tracks, The band wrote most of the songs for Ocean Rain in 1983. Then in early 1984 they started sessions for the album in Les Studio des Dames and Studio Davout in Paris using a 35 piece orchestra, assisted by Adam Peters for string arrangements and Henri Lonstan at des Dames as engineer. Other sessions took place back in the UK in Bath and Liverpool. McCulloch in fact re-recorded most of his vocals back in Amazon Studio’s in Liverpool as he was unhappy with the Paris sessions. Continuing the bands prominent use of strings which were used so successfully on ‘Back Of Love’ on Porcupine, The album actually received a mixed response on release, but time has proved a great healer and the wider perspective is that the album is indeed the band’s unrivalled pinnacle. Martyn Atkins again designed the cover with Brian Griffin the photographer. With the band wanting continue the elemental theme of the previous three albums, the shot used for the front cover is a picture of them in a rowing boat which was taken inside Carnglaze Caverns, Liskeard in Cornwall.
It was marketed as “the greatest album ever made.” It combined the powers of a member of the first wave of post-punk bands with the grandeur of a 35-piece orchestra, a move reminiscent of the evolution of the pioneers of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. It mixed surreal poetry with Eastern-influenced guitar lines, symphonic majesty with abrasive pop song structures, all while remaining a cohesive, disturbing and beautiful album. It is Ocean Rain, first released by Liverpool rockers Echo & the Bunnymen in 1984, and it remains both the band’s highest peak and breaking point.
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