Crocodiles (Deluxe Version)

More pop-saavy than Josef K and not as crassly commercial as Duran Duran, Echo & the Bunnymen were as distinctive a group of musicians as Liverpool ever produced. But though they flirted with the glossy melodrama of the New Romantic movement and the angular guitar-led sounds of some of Britain’s more pop-oriented post-punk adventurers, they never fit comfortably into either camp, and are often only remembered thanks to their best selling compilation Songs to Learn and Sing. This is a shame, because Echo & The Bunnymen created some of the most compelling pop albums of the ‘80s, and nowhere is this better demonstrated than on their remarkably cohesive debut Crocodiles. On Crocodiles, the Bunnymen leaven the often overwhelming melancholy mastered by the likes of Ian Curtis with a canny appreciation of classic pop songwriting and a grandiose, Beatles-esque approach to production that some saw as a move towards a new psychedelia. The result is a stirring yet endlessly accessible work that forgoes the breakneck squall of punk for a more relaxed approach that values inventiveness and virtuosity over brutal intensity. Though Echo & the Bunnymen would go on to refine their aesthetic over a series of increasingly successful album, Crocodiles remains their most concise and rewarding work.