Stars are Stars adds a sparse but firm piano line for drama. The arrangement is sparse and moody but driven. McCulloch's vocal stretches from the declaiming of the opener to a looser attitude that feels more like the account of an eyewitness. Pride adds some very New Wave palm muted guitars but then some very un-post punk double stopping, the added dynamics of a guitarless verse.
Monkeys starts with a punchy guitar assault then launches into a world wise comment on the selfishness of humans and a warbling chorus of "Qui ment?" Who's lying? The opening chordy riff squeezes into a fiery ground in the background. Crocodiles starts in full gear with McCulloch showing how much Elvis lurks in his vocal. It's not an impersonation, it just sits so easily in the pocket of the rockabilly on speed backing which soon sharpens to razor slashing chords as McCulloch's rocker vocal breaks into an exasperated shout. There is a kind of wireframe drawing against black background to it.
Flip it and side two opens with one of the era's most iconic riffs, the bright pendulum of Rescue. High on the fretboard, easy to learn in minutes and played through one of the effects of the era, a chorus pedal. McCulloch comes in with his short phrased declamation. And then the chorus explodes with an improbably mix of desperation and charm: "Woooon't you come on down to my rescue?" Third verse with an industrially strong bass backing and no guitar. Final chorus blast and then heads to the fade as a vocal round. Who the hell did that in 1980? And the self aware lyrics that ask if you can tell it in a song. And the plunging descent of the chorus that begs us down but lifts us at the same time. One of the great singles of the whole post punk epoque (steady, this won't all be gush).
Villiers Terrace bangs up with the full band at once, augmented by a piano. An unrelenting account of hedonistic panic as people chew on carpet, mixing up the medicine. A haze of nights in the dark of house parties, purple lights, over rummed punch and drugs that look different but all feel the same. The forward thrust stops the weariness of the lyric from taking route and conveys the exhaustion as well as the euphoria. Pictures on my wall departs from the concentrated lyric and band arrangement, allowing more space for the images and moods. Wailing verses of impressions of faces and places rushing by and the chorus grinds about the things about to fail: "pictures on my wall about to swing and fall." More extensive keyboards in this track with searing string synths add a cinematic tone but also betray it as of its time.
All that Jazz presents a tough but crisp groove. "Where the hell have you been?" It's easy to forget that between the escalated threat of nuclear annihilation and the rise of the uniformed hard right in the UK that everyone was just going to parties in the early '80s. The litany of fear in this lyric delivered in a repeated downward minor figure leads inexorably to the final lines: "See you at the barricades, babe. See you when the lights go low, Joe. Hear you when the wheels turn round. See you when the sky turns black."
Happy Death Men. With jungle toms, a Krautrock bass pulse and a jazz piano tinkle straight out of Bowie's Alladin Sane, McCulloch sings a melody somewhere between a clapping song and Claire De Lune. The band keep tight and forceful and are joined by a brass barrage in a break. "Happy death men polish and shine." This is less National Front skinheads than the War Pigs in boardrooms and parliamentary chambers. After a shouted coda from McCulloch, the brass, chaotic piano are driven by feverish drums, distant wordless vocal lament into the fade. A tiny call back sounds briefly and then silence.
Ian McCulloch had been in a band called the Crucial Three. The other two were Julian Cope who formed Teardrop Explodes and Pete Wylie who formed the band that went under several names all of which contained the word Wah! It's an odd historical tidbit as a trio of future leaders sounds like a disaster. It proved to be. And then the varying fates of the three and how they scrub up now. Echo and the Bunnymen win the durability race with four hit albums and many top forty singles and plenty of touring. Cope heads Teardrop Explodes until his own forces of gravity leave him the sole member. Wylie had trouble keeping his flock for a single album. All produced great moments but only Cope has really continued with any lasting presence beyond this era.
Echo and the Bunnymen presented an impressive big sound at a time when rock bands were having to reassess what that description meant. They fronted up with accessible songs and a musical clarity few could match at the time. They were all clean lines and contained drama but provided more dynamics than most of their field. Apart from some great stirring choruses they relied on McCulloch's charismatic vocal style to divert the listener from the sameyness of almost every verse. Think of it: if you just sang the verses of these songs and later ones like The Cutter or The Killing Moon would be able to tell them apart? And then if you are pressing the verses into a generic melody is it because of a need to highlight lyrcs over tunes? Maybe, if the lyrics were more strident instead of the richly abstract litanies and declamations we get. Oddly enough, that leaves the big choruses which do differ and the grooves of each number. If it weren't for the determination of the band to create ever changing dynamics to the songs there wouldn't be a lot to report.
But there is much to report with this band. In history they figure less visibly than cohorts like the Banshees, the Cure or Joy Division despite offering plenty in the way of new approaches to rock music. Unlike The Psychedlic Furs who took a few LPs to grow into their sound and presentation or the other Crucial Three descendants whose short and stormy careers offered courses in how-not-to do it, Echo and the Bunnymen persevered and maintained. Was it the unremarkable eponymous album that came years after the first big four that left their legacy difficult to access? Do their determinedly anti-stadium rock clean lines and solo free guitar assaults put them too awkwardly to one side of the stage that otherwise clamours with processed guitars and songs of self destruction? This band is clearly the inspiration for masses among their own immediate wake but if a Bunnymenesque outfit surfaced after that the influence note was long past. That's a pity because this album and a few to come gave us a solid alternative to the old guard's posturing and the worst excesses of the new.
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