It’s been 39 years in the waiting, but this year, I finally acted on my reasonably strong desire to buy Echo + The Bunnymen’s fourth album, “Ocean Rain.” Such as I’ve wanted a copy since its release in 1984! I will admit that I never really had a handle on the first two Bunnymen albums. At most I heard a tape that chasinvictoria made for me in 1980-1981. I hadn’t heard the records any other way back then. No college radio play or music videos.

But by 1983, I would occasionally see the stirring video for “The Cutter” or the string laden “Never Stop” on rare MTV showings, and I was definitely down with Echo + the Bunnymen by then, but to this day I only ever bought the JPN CD of “New Live + Rare.” Partially because it was rare Japanese goods and thus transitory on the marketplace, but mostly because it had the sumptuous nearly ten minute version of “The Killing Moon” on it! I had always assumed that there was a lot more where that came from on the “Ocean Rain” album, and the other video I caught on MTV for “Seven Seas” was another convincer.

[insert 39 year span here…]

The notion has been for over a decade to get the WEA 2xCD DLX RM of the album which was released in 2008, with a 2nd disc having the 1983 Royal Albert Hall concert where the “Never Stop” video was excerpted from. But when have I ever seen a copy? I was bin browsing at Time Traveler in February and I saw a heretofore unknown single disc DLX RM packed with material, and there’s something to be said for proximity. I snatched it up with nary a thought. It featured the album plus all of the B-side material from the two singles with them, plus three previously unreleased tracks.

Echo + The Bunnymen: Ocean Rain DLX RM – UK – CD [2003]

1. Silver
2. Nocturnal Me
3. Crystal Days
4. The Yo-Yo Man
5. Thorn Of Crowns
6. The Killing Moon
7. Seven Seas
8. My Kingdom
9. Ocean Rain
10. Angels And Devils
11. All You Need Is Love [Play At Home]
12. The Killing Moon [Play At Home]
13. Stars Are Stars [Play At Home]
14. Villiers Terrace [Play At Home]
15. Silver [Play At Home]
16. My Kingdom [Live – A Crystal Day – 12 May 1984]
17. Ocean Rain [Live – A Crystal Day – 12 May 1984]

“Silver” kicked off the album with the gregarious and winning sound of an upbeat Ian McCulloch singing over the urgent strumming of acoustic guitars and real drums and bass. There was nary a synthesizer in earshot and any augmentation of the band’s intimate sound was down to the fulsome orchestral arrangements from Adam Peters. “Silver” was an expansive and almost giddy song; held aloft with the best of intentions and a deceptively complex arrangement and a luxurious 12-string solo from Will Sergeant in the middle eight.

This had been the second single from the album but only in the UK. That’s understandable as it felt too sophisticated for the US airwaves. While it’s true that “The Killing Moon” and “Seven Seas” have not yet become played out for my ears; marking them as evergreen hits. Nearly 40 years later, “Silver” felt like what it was; the gift of a single that had been all but hidden from my ears for half a lifetime and coming home to roost.

The urgent brushed drumming and anxious melodramatic strings booming out of the arrangement marked “Nocturnal Me” a throwback to the Old World. The unresolved melody of the coda leaving lingering doubts in the listener’s ear. Changing pace with the ebullient “Crystal Days” found Sergeant’s clean, engaging tone out of the box dissipating the shadowy gloom of the preceding song. But it was the appearance of Sergeant’s shocking distorted solo against Pete DeFrietas’ clattering percussion that made the song positively explode in its middle eight. Hearing this now tells my ear that Korova missed a trick by not issuing it as a single.

Propulsive strummed acoustics and brushwork meant that “The Yo-Yo Man” allowed Ian McCulloch a cavernous space for his vocals to dominate the track while rare piano from Adam Peters manifested to slightly goose the melody here. The instrumental middle eight began with startling interjections of strings playing perpendicular to the melodies before a haunting piano and cymbal rondo calmed down the brief storm.

The minimal, Persian mystery of “Thorn Of Crowns” was just the sort of hard left turn that this album might need at its midpoint. The faintest hit of a Gene Krupa beat was barely there on the feather light drums. Buttery guitar chords suggested a languor while Mac’s aching sighs heralded the Arabic mystery to follow on guitar. Then Mac and the rhythm guitar awoke and kicked the song into fast gear with McCulloch spitting out his percussive lyrics with a sense of urgency as the song erupted into a technicolor splash of color. And the song vacillated between the poles of its extremes; at times serving a roiling clamor of music, and at others, retreating almost entirely into the shadows as it proffered a minimal stream of music barely there. As it reached its explosive climax, I was really hearing the influence of Television on the band that all too often lazy pundits only evoked The Doors for by way of comparison.

Next: …I See A Death Moon Rising