Album
Echo & The Bunnymen
Ocean Rain: Collector’s Edition
[Rhino/Warners]
Artist: Echo & The Bunnymen
Released: 03 November 2008
Catalogue number: 5186504515
Review
by Chris Jones
22 October 2008
Following the commercial breakthrough of 1983’s Porcupine, Ocean Rain was both a consolidation and point of disintegration for the Bunnymen: the point where the cracks began to show, but were masked with such beauty as to hardly matter. Here you sense a pull in two directions. McCullogh’s theatrics beg for widescreen setting yet Will Sergeant’s fierce, jagged guitar pays homage to every proto-psych garage band that appeared on the Pebbles and Nuggets compilations that wormed their way through the record collections of a myriad music geeks in the late 70s. As a result Ocean Rain represents Liverpudlian psych at its absolute peak.
Both the album and the wondrous live bonus disc – recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1983 – represent a glorious blend of vaulting ambition and limited ability. The Donny Darko-assisted ubiquity of The Killing Moon may have blunted its impact, but it’s still a gorgeous sweeping romantic gesture. Likewise second single, Seven Seas. But Thorn Of Crowns, pushed the shamanic Jim Morrisonisms a little too far. And while the use of a 35-piece orchestra allows the songs like Nocturnal Me (brooding with Eastern European sang froid) and the title track to set sail, in other cases (The Yo Yo Man) songs can flounder under the weight of intrusive arrangements. Also the sheen obscures the thiness of opener, Silver; a song that, if closely examined, shows signs of the band covering old ground.
In retrospect it sounds as though their garage roots were withering in the harsh glare of success. Unlike, say U2, who could reinvent themselves as world citizens, the Bunnymen would always be a very English institution. Only Pete de Freitas, whose performance on the live disc is a testament to his place at the very heart of the band, sounds like an utterly confident world-beater.
Such misplaced self-importance was to prove their undoing. And while Ocean Rain remains one of their finest albums it’s also the last truly great record they made.
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MA STIAMO SCHERZANDO????????
Led Zeppelin will tour with a replacement for founding singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones has confirmed.
Earlier this month it was reported that the rock legends were rehearsing with singer Myles Kennedy after Plant refused to consider touring with the band.
Jones has now told BBC Radio Devon that the band are trying out “a couple” of alternative singers for a proposed tour.
“We want to do it,” he explained. “It’s sounding great and we want to get on and get out there.”
The bassist added that he and his bandmates were not after a Plant soundalike.
“It’s got to be right,” Jones said. “There’s no point in just finding another Robert. You could get that out of a tribute band, but we don’t want to be our own tribute band. There would be a record and a tour, but everyone has to be on board.”
There has been speculation about the possibility of a full Led Zeppelin tour since they played a reunion show on December 10 last year at the London O2 Arena.
Robert Plant ruled himself out of a tour by releasing a statement last month saying he would not be part of any such plans.
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i LedZep senza Robert ,non sono i LedZep anche se circolano voci che a sostituirlo dovrebbero essere vocalist con gli attributi come quello degli Alter Bridge,Chris Cornell,David Grohl,David Coverdale e altri che ho letto ma non ricordo.
Che dire………staremo a sentire.
Buzz
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Sono più affezionato al primo di Echo, ma tant’è.
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Io adoro Siouxie ……….se vuoi Alien i Banshees li lascio a te:-)))
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non ci son più…
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per quello che li lascio a te:-)))siouxie c’è ancora,che sia andata via con Tex Willer?:-)))O Tiger jack?:-)))
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