Echo & the Bunnymen Ocean Rain

The greatest album ever made. Not my words. Ian McCulloch has always been good for a quote and claims his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he said this. With Mac the Mouth you can never be too sure.

Ocean Rain was sadly the last time the main four men in the Bunnymen were a fully functioning unit, drummer Pete de Freitas quit, the band toiled, he came back as a hired hand they then released their poorly received fifth album, although I like it. The band was fracturing, and McCulloch quit a few years later and de Freitas tragically died.

In my opinion they were a better band than Simple Minds and U2 and they must rue that they missed their moment, they were not the first and they will not be the last.

Is it the greatest album ever made? No, but its good. Of the nine tracks, three were released as singles. Silver is good, Seven Seas is excellent, and The Killing Moon is simply sublime. A chiming guitar from Sergeant behind a shuffling beat from Pattinson and de Freitas and McCulloch delivers an excellent vocal. It’s one of the greatest singles of the 80’s.

An Orchestra was hired for the album giving it a grand scale and the non-single tracks are equally impressive, Nocturnal Me and Ocean Rain are rich with atmosphere and apart from The Yo-Yo Man, I still find that a misstep all these years later, this is an album that’s reputation has grown.

8/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: The Killing Moon