Echo and The Bunnymen - Meteorites

Despite the fact, then, that the remaining duo of McCulloch and Will Sergeant have faced almost constant turmoil since resurrecting the Bunnymen name in 1997 - only last week, they cancelled a UK tour in near-farcical circumstances - their recorded output has actually remained relatively steady. Their last full-length, The Fountain, was fairly insipid, but both Flowers and Siberia had their moments and Holy Ghosts, the live capture of McCulloch’s 2012 solo record Pro Patria Mori, was outstanding, his finest effort since the turn of the century. His songwriting chops certainly aren’t in doubt, and it’s with that in mind that we can approach Meteorites with some optimism; the press release hints at a promisingly fraught gestation process, with McCulloch facing up to inner demons and a disillusioned Sergeant only agreeing to become involved late on after being convinced by the quality of the early session tapes.

Opener “Lovers on the Run” feels like a bit of a missed opportunity; it shoots for drama, with racing, string-aping synths and that same, ominous plucked guitar that pervades “The Killing Moon”, but McCulloch’s vocals lack the urgency required to match the instrumentation. “Is This a Breakdown” and “Holy Moses” are altogether airier, poppier even; the excellent latter pairs stomping percussion with a crunching late turn from Sergeant. For the most part, though, this side of the record doesn’t feel like much of a progression from The Fountain; the plodding “Explosions”, for instance, is post-Flowers Bunnymen-by-numbers, and the string-driven title track never quite takes off as it promises to.

Instead, it’s not until Meteorites broadens its scope a little that it begins to offer up genuine highlights. Chief among them is “Constantinople”; searing work from Sergeant, that sonically fits perfectly with the middle-eastern setting suggested by the title, provides an ideal foil for the most menacing McCulloch vocal on the album. “Burn It Down” channels some classic Ocean Rain grandeur to stirring effect, and the near eight-minute “Market Town”, whilst overlong, at least involves an honest attempt to move away from the record’s otherwise straightforward template, with a constantly-shifting sonic landscape climaxing in more spiraling riffery from Sergeant.

There’s plenty of evidence, in fact, to suggest that he’s on the form of his life - or at least his post-97 Bunnymen career - which is probably more than you can say for McCulloch. Lyrically, Meteorites is weak, especially compared to the constantly engaging Pro Patria Mori; “Grapes Upon the Vine” is supposed to see him tackle his long-standing drinking problem head-on, but comes off as glib; closer “New Horizons”, meanwhile, fails to deliver the tortured rumination upon McCulloch’s gambling-addict father that interviews promised, and is instead replete with a thumpingly vague selection of well-worn cliches; “the distance between guilt and innocence” is precisely what you weren’t hoping for when all the indications were that McCulloch had treated Meteorites as an exercise in withering self-excoriation.

Given that they have a well-established foothold in the nostalgia market already - they’ve toured Ocean Rain, Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here in their entirety in recent years - you rather suspect that Echo and The Bunnymen don’t need to release new material in order to tour; because of that, and given the surprise triumphs that were Pro Patria Mori and Holy Ghosts, I was hoping that Meteorites would be what the early rumblings made it out to be - a cathartic return to form. Instead, it largely continues to move into The Fountain’s middle-of-the-road territory; it’s hard to ever imagine a terrible Bunnymen record, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to envisage another brilliant one, too.