Record #319: Echo & The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here (1981)

Record #319: Echo & The Bunnymen - Heaven Up Here (1981)
The early 80s were famous for great post-punk lead singer/guitarist duos. Bono & The Edge, Morissey & Johnny Marr, Ian McColluch & Will Sargeant…wait, what do you mean you’ve never heard of Ian...

 

The early 80s were famous for great post-punk lead singer/guitarist duos. Bono & The Edge, Morissey & Johnny Marr, Ian McColluch & Will Sargeant…wait, what do you mean you’ve never heard of Ian & Will?

That, my friend, is a tragedy, and I’m sorry that society has largely ignored Echo & The Bunnymen, who remain one of the most under-heard bands of all time.

Heaven Up Here is chockfull of dark, reverberating atmospheres and punk sneer. The guitars scratch and swell up an ambient storm while moody basslines and frantic drum fills pound underneath Ian McColluch, who was one of the few post-punk vocalists that didn’t completely forget the suffix of the genre, howling and yelping through his lyrics with a sneer that wouldn’t be out of place on a Clash record. You couldn’t have a more Platonic ideal of post-punk if you put together an audio dictionary. It’s all gloom and spook and big hair dos, and the fact that it isn’t listed on every single list of essential post-punk albums or greatest 80s albums (ahem, @pitchfork​) is proof positive that we do not live in the most perfect of all possible universes.