ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN - Evergreen - 25th Anniversary Expanded Ed. - 2CD

2CD - Expanded Double CD Version with Studio B-Sides, Radio Sessions, Unreleased Live Cuts. 33 Tracks.

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Echo and The Bunnymen’s second coming, London Records revisit the band’s triumphant album Evergreen. Originally released in 1997, Evergreen marked a critical and commercial renaissance for the band after more than half a decade’s hiatus; an album that rightfully returned them to the Top 10 that sported three UK hits including the seminal ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’.

Ten years since they last graced the Top Ten Album Chart, Evergreen returned them there in July 1997. The Bunnymen had proved themselves not only deserving of a second wind but effortlessly welcomed by the musical landscape of the late-90s. Arriving in the season of Oasis’s Be Here Now and The Verve’s Urban Hymns, Evergreen was both of and beyond its time. At the time, McCulloch proudly spoke of the album as the best he’d believed they’d ever made. Through the sepia lens of hindsight, today he understates its value as containing “at least three great songs, which is three more than most bands have in their entire catalogue.” By name, the ballads ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, ‘Forgiven’ and ‘Just A Touch Away’. Beyond McCulloch’s holy trinity, Evergreen was just as notable for its snake-charming title track and the similarly serpentine ‘Empire State Halo’, both, like the best Bunnymen songs of yore, reaching our ears somewhere from Norris Green via Marrakesh. Elsewhere the Mersey shuffle of singles ‘Don’t Let it Get You Down’ and ‘I Want To Be There (When You Come)’ sees the brighter side of the band, as open and as relevant as their contemporaries past and present. “Someone asked me the other day why I reunited the Bunnymen,” McCulloch commented that summer. “Well, I haven’t. I’ve re-ignited the Bunnymen. Having said that, they never stopped glowing somewhere in my heart.” That glow made music, Evergreen still blinds.

Tracklist:

CD1
01. Don’t Let It Get You Down
02. In My Time
03. I Want To Be There (When You Come)
04. Evergreen
05. I’ll Fly Tonight
06. Nothing Lasts Forever
07. Baseball Bill
08. Altamont
09. Just A Touch Away
10. Empire State Halo
11. Too Young To Kneel
12. Forgiven
13. Watchtower
14. Polly
15. Hurracaine
16. Colour Me In
17. Antelope
18. Jonny

CD2
01. I Want To Be There (When You Come) *
02. Rescue *
03. Lips Like Sugar *
04. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo *
05. Nothing Lasts Forever **
06. The Killing Moon **
07. Baseball Bill ***
08. Just A Touch Away ***
09. I’ll Fly Tonight ***
10. Altamont ***
11. Lips Like Sugar ****
12. I Want To Be There (When You Come) ****
13. The Killing Moon ****
14. Forgiven +
15. Nothing Lasts Forever ++

* Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999
** Radio One Jo Whiley Session, 1997
*** Live At The Kilburn National, 1997
**** Whyt Radio Acoustic Version, 1997
+ GLR Robert Elms Acoustic Session, 1997
++ Radio One Live Lounge Session, 1999