We are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Echo & The Bunnymen‘s ‘Evergreen’ with a revisiting of the album by London Records. Originally released in 1997, ‘Evergreen’ marked a critical and commercial renaissance for the band after more than half a decade’s hiatus. ‘Evergreen’ was both of and beyond its time and this year receives a vinyl pressing for the very first time. The question rests if I will be going for the initial run of white vinyl or the transparent green vinyl edition of 1.000 copies exclusive to Rough Trade stores…
This special version of the well-known album counts 33 songs of which some originals, some live and some live acoustic versions. It is a warm sound bath, an eclectic mix of the memorable Echo-sound that I so enjoy. Their success formula will never fail to amaze me and in whichever format they release their music, it is a wild and all-consuming journey of powerful rock. This album is as relevant now as it was when it was first released, 25 years ago. Echo & The Bunnymen show a finesse most bands of today can learn a lot from, their unhurried and vibrant sound will always be the calming factor on hectic days for me. Favourites will probably always be ‘Don’t Let It Get You Down’ and ‘I Want To Be There (When You Come)’ but there aren’t any songs on the album I couldn’t listen to on repeat.
At the time of its release, Ian McCulloch proudly spoke of ‘Evergreen’ as the best he’d believed they’d ever made, today he understates its value as containing “at least three great songs, which is three more than most bands have in their entire catalogue”. On the ‘reuniting’ of the Bunnymen, he commented years ago: “I’ve re-ignited the Bunnymen. Having said that, they never stopped glowing somewhere in my heart.”
That glow made music, ‘Evergreen’ still blinds.
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