Echo And The Bunnymen even made glamour mileage out of the blue-grey chill that descended. Front man Ian McCulloch peered out dolefully from under his spiky-possum hairdo, looking for all the world like some celestial harbinger of gloom. His soaring, wounded cries were that little bit more beautiful to those who fancied him rotten.
This exaltation of inner complexity reaches its apex on the second album from the Liverpool band. Heaven Up Here (1981) is a rare thing: a follow-up that not only adds layers to the psychedelic pop of excellent debut album Crocodiles but also presents a quite different, funkier side to its character. This is a band you can dance to, even when swathed in a greatcoat and scarf.
The album is built on a rhythm section that found fresh confidence and muscle following 1980's relatively straight-ahead debut. Bass player Les Pattinson and drummer Pete de Freitas are to the fore, freeing up lead guitarist Will Sergeant to add colour and atmosphere while McCulloch summons his passions.
Though little real sense can be made of the band's lyrics, there is conviction, aggression and pinpoint execution in spades. It sounds convincing, even if the message isn't too clear.
Highlights on an album that contains no real clangers are the darkly grooving With A Hip; Over The Wall, a reverberant anthem that blends new-wave synths with bursts of hammering drums and chiming guitars; and a jarring, angular title track that captures the band in full flight as it rides a Joy Division-esque bass line. It Was A Pleasure is pure Bowie funk.
It was a steady slide toward banality from here, though many will consider Ocean Rain (1984) a more measured success.
