When Ian McCulloch left Echo & the Bunnymen in 1988 for a solo career, no one really expected the rest of the band to carry on without him, much less attempt to replace him. McCulloch was such a singular rock presence, mixing Jim Morrison brooding with goth attitude (before there was such a thing), that any attempt to slot a new singer in his spot was nearly unthinkable. But the Bunnymen did, in fact, soldier on, and the results were surprisingly good — maybe even better than McCulloch’s glossier solo debut.

While Ian chose to continue the mainstream sound of the Bunnymen’s self-titled 1987 album, the new Echo & the Bunnymen, with St. Vitus Dance vocalist Noel Burke, touring keyboardist Jake Brockman, and drummer Damon Reece (piling on the bad news, original Echo drummer Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1989) moved back to the earlier psychedelia of Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here with 1990’s Reverberation. Luckily, the band was poised to catch the zeitgeist of the Manchester baggy sound of the time with tracks like the first single, “Enlighten Me” (download), a trippy mix of sitars, baggy beats and guitarist Will Sergeant’s distinctive guitar riffs. New singer Burke wisely chose not to try to imitate McCulloch’s singing style and the results were catchy and appealing. (more…)