Not Bad for a Band on the Verge of Breaking Up

Review Score: (8/10)
The four dour personages of the cover of the "Gray Album" could only hint at what was going on behind the scenes during the making of this album. The band was fighting, breaking up, regrouping, and yet managed to make their best selling album out of the chaos. It's equally fascinating that some of songs here are E&TB's most coherent. They are also the most timely sounding, probably more to producer Laurie Latham trying to make the band sound more 80's timely and the band being too contentious to care.

Ian McCulloch was also veering into a new phase of singing. He's in deep croon here, as "Bomber's Bay" and "All My Life" deftly indicates. He was stretching towards arty pop (Ray Manzerek guesting on "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo" is a dead giveaway) and the rest of the band was resisting. The tension gave birth to terrific songs like "Lips Like Sugar" and "The Game," but also guaranteed the band would jettison him after this record was done. Too bad, because the rift that led the Bunnymen to go on without the Mac left us with the bitter "Reverberation" and Mac's "Candleland" needed them more than he cared to admit.

But for now we can revel in this remastered and punchier sounding disc of the Bunnymen's swansong. (I don't count the reunion albums.) The bonus tracks are pretty cool, in particular, the live version of "Soul Kitchen."

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