ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN
Evergreen (London)
Time flies when you’re having fun, and those of us long in the tooth enough will be mildly perturbed that a quarter of a century has passed since Evergreen was released.
Always one of the more underrated post-punk bands, in 1997 Echo & The Bunnymen had returned from the margins after a 10-year absence, parachuting into the narrowing gap between lad and dad rock. Ian McCulloch and co. returned with renewed energy and a bagful of tunes to show the upstarts that they still had the swagger, long before Richard Ashcroft strutted down the sidewalk.
Aside from the odd misstep into baggy drums and riffology that had already done for The Stone Roses a few years previously, there’s a load to admire here, from the chutzpah of Don’t Let It Get You Down and its refrain “Rise above, Jesus loves,” to the Britpoppy 60s beat of In My Time, the string-drenched Bond tune that never was Just A Touch Away, and the Doorsy blues of Hurracaine and Empire State Halo.
It may, at the time, have been quickly superseded by the futurism of OK Computer, but add in the transcendent classic Nothing Lasts Forever and a strong sequence of closing tunes (beginning with the Mighty Lemon Dropping indie psyche of Colour Me In) and Evergreen shows its perennial appeal.
words CHRIS SEAL
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