Echo & The Bunnyman

(Translated from my original Italian text by Gemini and Piero Scaruffi)

Echo And The Bunnymen were, along with Orchestral Manouvres, the leaders of the Liverpool renaissance that successfully opposed the cold neurasthenia of post-punk modernism. The group ended up coining a melodic style that hadn't existed before, a hybrid of psychedelia and pop with relatively sumptuous arrangements (not so much baroque as "dense").

In the beginning, Echo And The Bunnymen were a quartet from Liverpool who placed themselves at the forefront of the British psychedelic rock revival. Leading them were guitarist Will Sergeant (already the author of the cassette Weird As Fish, 1979) and singer Ian McCulloch, who in March 1979 released the single Pictures On My Wall, destined to remain their most depressed nightmare, featuring an apocalyptic organ in the style of the Doors and horror-night effects.

The Bunnymen immediately won over both public and critics with the fine and delightful songs of Crocodiles (Korova, 1980), bolstered by typical pressing hallucinogenic progressions (in Do It Clean the more tribal rhythms and more epic choruses), sharp guitar work in the vein of Television, and shimmering, hypnotic instrumental textures, filled with jingle-jangle and raga arpeggios (Stars Are Stars, Monkeys), amidst steps of "Cramps-ian" voodoobilly (All That Jazz), violent and distorted Velvet-style threnodies (Rescue, Going Up), and convoluted funk in the style of Joy Division (Villiers Terrace). The sacrilegious and tribal wish of Happy Death Men seals the album in a swinging happening of detunings and a sabbatic crescendo of dissonance. The single Puppet accentuates the funk rhythms and propels an "off" disco dance.

Meanwhile, Sergeant had recorded the instrumental album Themes For Grind (92 Happy Customers, 1982).

Solemn and majestic (Over The Wall), lugubrious and hypnotic (A Promise), fairytale-like and bright (All My Colours, Turquoise Days), the second album, Heaven Up Here (Sire, 1982), softens the sound's impetus, but on the third, Porcupine (Sire, 1983), the frantic vaudeville of The Back Of Love and the symphonic raga Cutter shine with the most eccentric chromatism, creative rhythmic kaleidoscopes, and sinuous harmonic carnivals. Impressionistic, emotive, symbolist, the group's style recycles itself. The theme of their deviant little songs remains the electro-acoustics of Pictures, at most with greater elegance in arrangements and a rhythmic presence that becomes increasingly club-oriented.

Thus, on the baroque Ocean Rain (Sire, 1984), stuffed with strings, the dance-dadaist joke of Never Stop, the atmospheric ballad The Killing Moon, and two symphonic tunes, the melodramatic Silver and Seven Seas, stand out. Nocturnal Me is typical of the bitter mood of maturity.

Then came the rapid decline, with increasingly bland and commercial singles, Bring On The Dancing Horses (1985) and Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (1987, featuring Ray Manzarek on organ), which confirm the precariousness of the genre. Lips Like Sugar was their most successful single, an AOR ballad taken, like the previous one, from Echo & The Bunnymen (Sire, 1987).

Drummer Pete De Freitas died in 1989 in a motorcycle accident.

Sergeant still released under the name Echo And The Bunnymen the album Reverberation (Sire, 1990), but the group was effectively dead. The album, in reality, was far from bad: in fact, it was impressive how it continued the program of the previous one, as if to prove that Ian McCulloch was responsible only for the lyrics.

Ian McCulloch released his first solo work, Candleland (Sire, 1989), on which he plays almost everything by himself. The style took inspiration from the more dreamlike tendencies of the old group, preserving the charm of that guitar pop and its atmospheric arrangements. Proud To Fall, Flickering Wall, and I Know You Well are on par with the last Echo record. Aside from the disco hit Faith And Healing (New Order-style), the ethereal title-track (with Elizabeth Fraser on backing vocals), the Oriental-tinged In Bloom and White Hotel are very personal tracks, which compose an almost cathartic experience of analyzing his own past.

The subsequent Mysterio (East West, 1992), however, succumbs to fashionable arrangements and renounces the ethereal atmosphere. Magical World still has the Echo spirit, while Honeydrip winks at the shoegazers.

The reunion with Will Sergeant, this time under the name Electrafixion, caused a stir. Burned (Spacejunk, 1995) scales back the stature of the singer and instead exalts that of the guitarist. Sergeant's instrumental inventions embellish numerous tracks (Time Bomb, Zephyr, Sister Pain, Never) and redeem McCulloch's sloppy performance. The record is actually a tour de force for Sergeant, who behaves like a little Hendrix of the overdub era. Instead of indulging in psychedelic litanies, Sergeant unleashes a whirlwind of sound effects and hard rock riffs.

Echo & The Bunnymen reunited ten years later for Evergreen (London, 1997), which contains a revision of Baseball Bill (a late single by Electrafixion) and little else of note (the single Nothing Lasts Forever). The orchestral pathos of Forgiven is mostly embarrassing.