Product Description

Emerging from Liverpool, England in 1980, Echo and the Bunnymen were hailed as the vanguard of a new psychedelic-rock movement. While vocalist Ian McCulloch's cryptic lyrics and Will Sergeant's colourful guitar arrangements do evoke the dark, brooding intensity of '60s groups like the Doors, Echo and the Bunnymen owed more to English post-punk than '60s rock. Featuring songs that range from the supercharged three-chord garage rock of "Do It Clean" and the crashing album opener, "Going Up", to the hazy neo-psychedelia of "Villiers Terrace" and "Pictures on My Wall", CROCODILES is a remarkably good debut, one that established Echo and the Bunnymen as one of most creative and charismatic English rock bands of the'80s. The American edition of CROCODILES also boasts the single "Rescue", a dramatic, melodic track that layers McCulloch's gritty rhythm guitar over Sergeant's chiming lead and producer David Balfe's subtle keyboard work to create one of the definitive U.K. singles of the post punk era. While Echoand the Bunnymen would later become modern-rock icons, CROCODILES captures them in all their raw, ragged glory, trying to emulate the work of their heroes David Bowie and the Velvet Underground but instead creating music of startling originality.

Track Listing

1. Going Up
2. Stars Are Stars
3. Pride
4. Monkeys
5. Crocodiles
6. Rescue
7. Villiers Terrace
8. Pictures On My Wall
9. All That Jazz
10. Happy Death Men
11. Do It Clean
12. Read It In Books
13. Simple Stuff
14. Villiers Terrace (Early Version)
15. Pride (Early Version)
16. Simple Stuff
17. Crocodiles (Live)
18. Zimbo (Live)
19. All That Jazz (Live)
20. Over The Wall (Live)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17611 in Music
• Released on: 2003-11-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Customer Reviews

Happy death men, the last breathmen, take them to your heart!
Faultless! The inclusion of 'Read it in Books' on here as a bonus track makes it outstanding. Still this is the debut album that had everything and still does. See you at the barricades. When I got this to replace my vinyl and got that dark brooding vibe with its hint of malice and threat it was flashback time. Revolutionary stuff and all of that young man angst and insecurity. It all happens at 'Villiers Terrace'.

From the opening bars of 'Going Up' you actually feel that you are - right up - until the extended outro on 'Happy Death Men'. That's how the vinyl finished anyhow, but then you have the bonus tracks. The inclusion of the 'Let it Shine' EP Live stuff is a dream. I'd never heard 'Simple Stuff'! This is a great reworking of the original album.

Shine so hard
Echo and The Bunnymens spectacular Television inspired debut "Crocodiles" was part 1 in an installment of the best run of albums of the 1980's, even better than U2's "Boy" To "Joshua Tree" and one record longer than The Chameleons "Script of the Bridge" to "Strange Times".

Spikey, raw and punkified in places yet pyscadelic and acidic in others "Crocodiles" effortlessly meshes pounding rhythms, choppy guitar and the youthful but authoritative vocals of Ian Mculloch.
Highlight "Stars are Stars" is the epitome of a cold starry night perfectly capturing its sense of claustrophabia and despair and marks Mcullochs first of many lyrical masterpieces'.
Although Guitarist Will Sergent would only reach artistic maturity and achieve genius on the bands follow up "Heaven up Here", his minimalism is very poignant and his echoey tones on "Monkees" make for another stand out track.
"Villers Terrace", "Pictures on my Wall" and "Do it Clean" (available on re-issues) are counter anthemnic, post punk perfection and early Bunnymen favourites. Macca's Bowie meets Iggy vocals and the musical mastery of the Bunnymen eleavate "Crocodiles" way above there peers U2 and the Teardrop Explodes' debut offerings. The Bunnymen would better this record twice, firsly with the swirling, brooding forever autumn briliance of "Heaven up Here" and then with the ice cold "Porcupine" but its still stands the test of time.

Lovely Stuff.

Going up
This release contains the original album released in 1980. Barely clocking in at 30 minutes the album was fantastic but too short. This was remedied by the release of a seven inch containing “Read It In Books” and “Do It Clean” which appeared on the American album. The tape version which I bought in the 1980s had the A and B sides the wrong way around and contained “Read It In Books” and “The Puppet” (mis-titled as "Do It Clean"). Import cd and vinyl releases in the late 80s also included those two tracks.

Of an apparently generous ten extras tracks (although this is testament to the brevity of the album’s original form) “The Puppet” does not appear. Apart from that criminal omission, fans can programme what I think is the best sequence, namely the second side followed by the first side with "Read It In Books" inserted immediately before “Pictures On The Wall” (which is not as good as the original single release.)

I cannot believe that I am the only person in the world to have listened to the album in the reverse order but in any event I feel wholly justified in believing, first, that the classic opening riff of "Rescue" makes a better introduction to the album than "Going Up"'s more drawn out opening and, secondly, that the blistering "Crocodiles" itself is a more climatic and complete album end than "Happy Death Men" whose fade segues perfectly into "Going Up" if programmed in the way I suggest. Try me!

The extras include the “Shine So Hard” ep in its entirety. Maligned by the band at the time, "Shine So Hard" shows what a fantastic live group the Bunnymen were and was a showcase for the versatile drumming of the late, great, Pete de Freitas. Of the remaining six tracks only three have not been released before and these are early versions of songs which appear on the rest of the disc in not particularly altered form.

These technical and value issues aside, the quality of the songs is beyond doubt. Les Pattinson’s bass was the most prominent it would ever be, the mood mature beyond the band’s years and, although not as brilliant as “Heaven Up Here” or “Ocean Rain”, "Crocodiles" announced the Bunnymen as the major force in the post-punk British rock scene.