It's New to Me: Echo & the Bunnymen by Echo & the Bunnymen (1987)

Illustration from an ad by the United States Brewers Foundation, 1953

I've gradually been picking up the 2003 reissues of the Echo & the Bunnymen albums, in spite of the fact that I hardly ever listen to them. There's just something so austere, even dour, about the music that I never really warm to it. Even an amazing song like "The Killing Moon" I find myself admiring more than enjoying when I listen to it - and then I rarely feel an urge to go back and listen again. Nonetheless, I snapped up a used copy of the band's self-titled 1987 album the moment I saw it - the last of the band's original run, it has a reputation of being the band's most "pop" moment in its first incarnation, even though it was made at a point when the Bunnymen could barely stand to be in the same room with each other.

I think I made the right call, because I'm enjoying Echo & the Bunnymen a lot more than Ocean Rain or Porcupine, as contrarian as that sounds. And I think I know why - the band's Doors influence is largely absent from these songs, and I think it's the Doors influence that bugs me about them. Not that I have a problem with the Doors - they're fine - but I rarely like bands that try to sound like the Doors. I don't think Will Sargent is doing anything really different here - his guitar sound is one of my favorite things about the band. The big difference is that Ian McCulloch's vocals are more restrained, and the more keyboard-oriented arrangements make the songs more accessible. When you remove the Doors from the Bunnymen equation, you're left with David Bowie verses and U2 choruses. And this works for me.

The Bunnymen themselves still refer to Echo & the Bunnymen as "overcooked", but I think that "The Game", "Over You", "Bombers Bay", and "Lips Like Sugar" are as good as the best songs from their other albums ("The Killing Moon" possibly excepted). And I think I'll be more inclined to pull this one off the shelf on a regular basis - it may even make the band's other albums more accessible to me over time. I find I have a particular fondness for the album's closing track, "All My Life" - McCulloch's resigned vocal sounds really good to me here, and the pastoral arrangement of strings and horns provides a nice contrast to the rest of the album's more aggressively "pop" sounds without taking on that dourness.

"All My Life" by Echo & the Bunnymen