Echo & the Bunnymen
(Ocean Rain)
Once upon a time, Ian McCulloch, once and forever the voice of Echo and the Bunnymen, couldn't make it through more than a couple songs before he broke out in a trademark wail which was a little wobbly but always dramatic. Robert Smith couldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. Or groom his tall coif.
On The Fountain, the fifth Bunnymen studio album since McCulloch and Will Sergeant (the other guitarist and only other original member) patched things up, the vocalist never pulls out his trademark. He sticks with mid-range talk singing. He doesn't sound bad, he just sounds.... average. That's just one of things working against this album.
Whereas once he was making literary references or merely stuttering types of produce convincingly, McCulloch is now singing, "Love it, hate it/ Want it, had it/ Need it, got it/ Down, d-down, d-down," over hard rock power chords to create a sound that would fit perfectly into some commercial over images of pouty hipsters eating mayonnaise or buying clothes. Or maybe a scene of old school Bunnymen fans driving their hip new car. Titled "Do You Know Who I Am?" it begs the answer: I don't know.
This doesn't make the album a wash, nor are either of those scenarios inherently evil. But it reinforces that here the Bunnymen sound like any alternative rock band that was influenced by the Liverpool quartet's original albums. In fact, aside from McCulloch and Sergeant, the band is anybody. Three additional musicians are listed in the CD booklet without instrument credits so it's unclear if they are the blokes who Mac referred to in the CD press release when he talks about working on song ideas with "three London-based musicians," or if they're just support players. Five of the 12 tracks give producers John McLaughlin and Simon Perry co-writing credit along with McCulloch and Sergeant. Surprisingly, the title track is one of only three songs McCulloch wrote by himself, and it's one of the strongest, indicating that the old style can be dressed up for modern times if it has a chance.
Standout Tracks: "I Think I Need it Too," "The Fountain" MIKE SHANLEY
