Track Listing

1. Don't Let It Get You Down
2. In My Time
3. I Want To Be There (When You Come)
4. Evergreen
5. I'll Fly Tonight
6. Nothing Lasts Forever
7. Baseball Bill
8. Altamont
9. Just A Touch Away
10. Empire State Halo
11. Too Young To Kneel
12. Forgiven

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29060 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-04
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks

CD Description
The tellingly titled EVERGREEN finds all the surviving charter members of Echo & the Bunnymen recording together for the first time since 1987. The band made one album without singer Ian McCulloch before disintegrating. Band members collaborated on various projects over the years, but only as a cohesive unit have they ever truly hit their mark.
McCulloch's voice is still velvety and pure, at once exuberant and tragic. His lyrics marry fragmented wordplay ("I'm in my primeand you're wasting my time/ You're denominator commonest low") with the swaggering self-confidence that has long been his trademark. Will Sergeant's guitar playing is, as ever, aninspired mix of frenetic stabs, swirling arpeggios, and soaring melodic accompaniment. Not to be overlooked, bassist Les Pattinson holds it all together admirably, delivering a tuneful, confident low end. EVERGREEN marks the triumphant return for Liverpool's other favourite sons--free of formula, but true to the promise of their majestic early years.

Customer Reviews

Time waits for no Bunnyman
I've owned this CD twice already. Lent it to a good friend - never got it back. Time passed, missed it loads. Once you know Evergreen is out there you need it close by. Just in case. My fave tracks are easy 3, 6, 9 & 12 and of course No 4 Evergreen, the title track. People grow older, if they are lucky, and time changes you, mellows you, makes you more reflective, leaves unanswered questions and unsaid thoughts. That's all in this album for me in a style that is Echo & the Bunnymen, or the mellow side at least. There are flashes of energy in 'I Want To Be There (When You Come)'. But there is always the sombre undertone to the album. Most akin to 'Ocean Rain' in terms of sound. Orchestral backing helps to fill out the sound and mood and keeps it fresh and light (Evergreen almost). Quite a contradiction but it works. If anything is missing from the album it's strong percussion. It seems the whole point of the music, eventually they had to move on without the late Pete de Freitas. This album makes his absence felt without failing to be great music. I Love it.

Seriously underrrated
This album is seriously underrrated.Listened to in retrospect it comes across as one of the best albums of the nineties.Its flawed perhaps by knowledge of what came threafter-the excellent but publically ignored What are you going to do.. and the cheap'n'cheerful Flowers which was a pale imitation of past glories with very poor lyrics on most songs. On Evergreen by contrast everything comes together very nicely-Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson,the latter then still a bass player with the band, contribute thoughtful, melodic lines (some of Will's best work is here) and Mac's lyrics are amongst his best. Its not a moody album in the main, which probably put off a lot of die-hard fans, but listen to the jangle guitar of 'In My Time' or the scuzzy freak-out of 'Altamont' and you can easily see why many at the time fell in love with the Bunnies all over again.

Give it time
After listening to the early Echo and the Bunnymen (again) I thought I would try this. I had actually *tried* to listen to it when it first came out but what I heard I had found dull and hadn't really bothered with it anymore. Anyway empowered by really enjoying their early albums again (the re-releases with extra tracks) I decided to give this another go and I have actually found it pretty good. I think the difficulty with it is that it isn't the early sound, it had less edge and menace, so it can be difficult to listen to in that context, but if you are able to take it on its own terms it is a different sound, more layered perhaps, less immediate, but worth experiencing.