Fountain Of Youth

Echo & The Bunnymen
Genre: Alternative / Rock / Indie
From: The Capital of Culture, Liverpool, United Kingdom

They could have been contenders, they could have been world saviours, they could have hobnobbed with world leaders and saints, they could have been rock royalty except, well they couldn't be arsed, and they were far too cool to become arses like Bono. The Bunnymen are back and Mac the Mouth is as cool as ever.

Who would you rather be? The smug as fuck Bono or the cool as fuck Ian McCulloch? Bono may be a worldwide brand but Mac is still the coolest fucker on the planet and Bono'd kill Saint Bob to have his credibility. OK the Bunnymen haven't released a killer album since Ocean Rain and seem to have spent the past few years rewriting Bring On The Dancing Horses but that doesn't matter they're still cooler than an eskimo's todger.

The mighty Bunnymen are back with a new album, 'The Fountain'. So have they gone all drum 'n bass or experimented with the odd bit of grime? Have they ditched the crystalline guitars and released an electro album? Have they decided that now's the time to release an alt-folk or afrobeat album? Sadly, no The Fountain is Will and Mac on autopilot and owes more to the chugging Bunnymen of Bring on the Dancing Horses than the revolutionary rockers of Heaven Up Here. The mysterious, intriguing lyrics of Mac's youth are replaced by puns that your dad would reject as going too far and his lungs ain't what they used to be. The years of politically incorrect smoking have transformed the lung busting Mac yelp into a husky drawl.

Thankfully, however, it's not all Bunnymen by numbers. The indie disco of Life of 1,000 Crimes is a welcome deviation and the first fifteen seconds of Shroud of Turin, before the traditional Sergeant guitars crash in, sounds like a scouse take on Blur's Boys & Girls.

The Fountain will please those fans who jumped aboard the good ship Bunnymen after the release of Ocean Rain but for those of us desperately waiting for a revitalised Bunnymen, preferably including Les Pattinson, to bang out a masterpiece a la Heaven Up Here or a neo psychedelic set of tracks in the vein of Pictures On My Wall it's a tad disappointing.

The Bunnymen's new album is the sound of going prematurely grey but Mac's status as the coolest man on the planet is still assured and in the end surely that's what counts, ask Bono.

Go Try

MP3 - Echo & The Bunymen - Think I Need It To
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Go Visit

Echo & The Bunnymen - Myspace // Website // Last.FM

Go View
Echo & The Bunnymen
Over The Wall (Live 1981)