Echo & The Bunnymen : A Promise
On May 30, 1981 Echo and the Bunnymen released Heaven Up Here, a UK#10 hit that won best album from the readers at the 1981 NME Awards and is currently ranked 463 in Rolling Stone's list of the greatest rock albums of all time. NME critics ranked the album the #22 best of the year, while it came in #2 in the Sounds poll and topped the Rockerilla list.
The album cover tells you exactly what's in store, a more atmospheric, moody and melancholic album than the debut, and requires repeated listens to "get". But the reputation of Heaven Up Here has grown over the years. The label didn't hear a single and instructed the band to write one. The result is "A Promise".
Recorded in Wales with Hugh Jones producing, the album re-creates the dry ice atmosphere of the Bunnymen's stage show. In a recent Tim' sTwitter Listening Party guitarist Will Sergeant says Jones sent his instrument through reverbs, echo "and a new thing called the Eventide Harmoniser... The slightest scrape, scratch, flick, squeak or pop of the guitar could be used and transformed."
Some of the influences cited by various Bunnymen include Pink Floyd's "Lucifer Sam", The Velvet's "What Goes On" and James Brown's Sex Machine.
The NME's Barney Hoskyns described the album as "one of the most superior articulations of 'rock' form in living memory. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau was not so taken by the album, giving it a grade of C and writing:
Word was these erstwhile-and-futurist popsters had transcended songform, so I gritted my teeth and tried to dig the texture, flow, etc. Took the enamel clean off. I hold no brief against tuneless caterwaul, but tuneless psychedelic caterwaul has always been another matter. Ditto for existential sophomores. And, need I add, Jim Morrison worship
The album cover was shot by Brian Griffin in Porthcawl, Wales, with a bucket of fish used to entice the seagulls. The album earned the "Best Dressed LP" award from the NME. Outtakes can be found on the photographer's website.
Heaven Up Here as made the last 40 years that richer for it being part of my life. The Bunnymen made for of the greatest albums ever, IMO, and on any given day, I would rank Heaven Up Here as the best of them.
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