The fifth of our Echo & The Bunnymen remastered re-issues is the self-titled Echo & The Bunnymen. Pressed on 180g vinyl initial copies are available in CLEAR vinyl.

The album was produced by Laurie Latham who recorded the album in Germany, Belgium, London and Liverpool after an aborted attempt at recording the album without de Freitas at Conny Planks studio in Cologne with producer Gil Norton. The band had taken a year off after the success of Ocean Rain and without a drummer as de Freitas had resigned from the band and moved to USA, were committed to making an album without a member who was fundamental to the bands creative success. Tensions grew within the band, and after trying numerous other drummers without success, the band then took Freitas back as a hired hand rather than a full member.

The band were now ready to record Echo & The Bunnymen. But complications with recording and friction between McCulloch and Will Sergeant, the process was fraught with problems. The resulting songs moved away from the use of strings, which featured heavily on Ocean Rain to the introduction of keyboards in the melody of the tracks. What the band had hoped to be a collection of simple songs had turned into lengthy drawn out process with Latham taking one month to complete just one track.

On release the album received a mixed response, probably much in due to the change of direction as to anything else. The album still featured hook-heavy songs like ‘Lips Like Sugar’, but it is the guitars on tracks such as “Lost And Found’ which are probably more representative of the album as a whole.

The album featured three singles , ‘The Game’, ‘Lips Like Sugar’ and ‘Bedbugs And Ballyhoo’.