Distinctly Familiar: Echo & the Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain at 40

Amid a fertile alternative music scene in the U.K., spurred on by a flurry of new independent labels, bands like Echo & the Bunnymen had to work harder to stand out from the pack. The austere, post-punk minimalism of the group’s first three albums earned them critical acclaim and a cult following, but by 1984 their sound—Joy Division as fronted by Jim Morrison, if you will—was in need of retooling. Was there space for another scrappy, dour foursome alongside more established acts like Siouxsie and the Banshees, an ascendant U2, and unique sounds from the likes of Cocteau Twins and Depeche Mode?

Echo & the Bunnymen’s fourth album, Ocean Rain, would prove to be their shining moment. The quality of the songwriting ensures its status as a classic, separating it from both the band’s more uneven earlier works and their patchy, self-titled follow-up from 1987.

It’s Ocean Rain’s maximalist sound, though, that truly demands your attention. Studio engineer Henri Loustau deserves credit for overseeing the recording of a 35-piece orchestra for the album, as does arranger Adam Peters, who also contributed piano and cello to the recordings.

Indie purists might balk at the orchestral pomp bestowed to songs like “Nocturnal Me” and the evergreen, epic mood piece “The Killing Moon,” while younger listeners may feel there’s a taste issue in the Eastern inflections of Will Sergeant’s guitar playing. But these instrumentation choices give Ocean Rain an element of playfulness lacking from Echo & the Bunnymen’s previous work, and lend the album a distinct yet familiar character.

In going from earnest minimalism to self-conscious maximalism, bands can risk losing their identities, but Echo & the Bunnymen didn’t abandon acoustic instruments to pursue the more synth-heavy trends of the time. Practically everything heard on Ocean Rain is real, and far from the thunderous “gated” drum sound that was then in vogue (see Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., released the same year), the drums on Ocean Rain are less prominent than they were on previous albums, with Pete de Freitas favoring brushes over sticks for more nimble rhythms.

Of course, Echo & the Bunnymen also had a superb set of songs at their disposal. How they chose to dress them up was ultimately to their betterment, and in keeping with their reputation as a band unconcerned with being compared to bands of the past. They leaned into the Doors comparisons, and embraced their lineage as a Liverpudlian band, so it feels appropriate that their great attempt at achieving mainstream appeal would result in an album that could have been made in 1967. This is pop tinged with elements of psychedelia: sitars and eastern scales, Scott Walker-style strings, and even some gleefully nonsensical lyrics (“You are a dying breed…You once was an Inca, now you’re a Cherokee!” Ian McCulloch sings on “Thorn of Crowns”).

It’s not until “The Killing Moon,” six songs into the nine-track album, that Les Pattinson’s bass guitar can be discerned by the human ear. And McCulloch’s theatrical vocal mannerisms, jumping from post-punk crooning to Bono-esque belting, are certainly a product of the time. As are his lyrics, containing the gothic imagery and entry-level existentialism expected of an enigmatic frontman in the time of new wave on tracks like “The Yo-Yo Man”: “Flames on your skin of snow turn cold/Cold is the wind that blows through my headstone.”

Ultimately, though, Ocean Rain remains distinctive in its presentation of ’60s revivalism filtered through ’80s indie sensibilities. And it’s the strength of the material, so colorfully drawn, as well as the audible enthusiasm with which it’s performed by a band teeming with ideas and ambition, that sustains the album 40 years on from its release.