Customer Reviews

Heaven Up There

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First and foremost, I'm familiar with a lot of the Bunnymen's music; however, this is the only CD of theirs I will own. The rest of their music is bland, for my tastes. With that said, this is a great CD.

There is a mood that is haunting; it's engaging. The songs have energy in a subdued way, and the lyrics are powerful. I dare say that this is a "must have" CD for any collector of rock/punk music.

Even though there is not one mediocre song on this CD, I absolutely recommend "Over the Wall" and "The Disease."

These musicians have created a virtually unrivaled collection of songs in "Heaven Up Here."

Personally, I feel that this is the best Bunnymen album. For those of you that are into 'Goth' music and always wanted to check this classic band out, this is the album that would be best for you to start with. "Heaven Up Here" is easily the gloomiest and most angst-ridden Bunnymen release. Highlights include "Show Of Strength" and the moody bitterness of "All My Colours" ("That box you gave me/burned nicely") Similar in spirit to Joy Division and early Cure, this CD will not disappoint the post-punk enthusiast or serious Goth music collector.

I just find 80's post punk music to be fantastic. I'm happy I have bands such as Echo in my cd collection and feel a bit sorry for those who feel that kid rock and limp bizkit are alternative music. Seems the American public has little taste, see parents that's what you get for letting little Brandon and Buffy watch Jerry Springer after school and not the Discovery channel.....

This is the pinacle of a great band. While I like every Bunnymen album, I feel Crocodiles is a bit too amateurish, Porcupine a bit forced, and Ocean Rain a bit too accessible. Heaven Up Here finds the Bunnymen at a point of beautiful darkness, ethereal wondering, and passionate thundering. If all Bunnymen albums were this good I wouldn't hesitate to call them the greatest band ever.

Heaven Up Here is still (more than 10 years after listening to it) one of my favourites. It is one of the best recordings of post-punk and new wave I've ever heard. I was big fan of The Cure, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Joy Division (recordings from the first half of eighties) and "Heaven Up Here" was one of a few other recordings I've used to listen to.
All songs are great, impressive, full of energy. Some of them are still in my head (and in my heart). It's worthy to try it (for me the best of their recordings). Bye.
P.S.: Sorry for my poor english.

This is, in my opinion, pretty much what U2 were trying to sound like on their first two albums, before they upped their game. They didn't manage it: Bono was too pompous and couldn't really sing, the rhythm section was sloppy and Edge didn't have Will Sergeant's finesse. Interestingly enough, Simple Minds were trying to ape U2 at around the same time - the less said about them the better.
On to the album itself. I've got Show of Strength blasting out of my computer speakers at the moments. It sounds as fresh as the day it was made. Will Sergeant's guitar is simultaneously hooky and melancholy, a difficult thing to pull off, Les Pattinson and Pete De Freitas make the whole thing funkily danceable and McCulloch's voice reverberates above the mix in a strangely disembodied manner. I was -3 years old when this came out, so I can only imagine what the tour for this album must have been like. Probably quite intense. I wish I'd been there. I don't really have any favourite songs, but there are standout moments on the record: the ARP Odyssey chiming out in Over the Wall, the suddenly hushed atmosphere ushering in The Disease and the Closer-era Joy Division-esque rhythmic damped guitar on Turquoise Days being just a few. If you don't have this album, buy it. Then get Crocodiles, Porcupine and Ocean Rain. These four albums, all of which have their adherents, are the Bunnymen classics. You won't regret it.

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN WAS MUSIC THAT MATTERED, ORIGINAL, HIPNOTIC, AND MOST OF THE TIMES HEAVENLY DEPPRESING,THERE'S NO FAVORITE ALBUM FOR ME, BUT IF YOU WANT TO START UP ON THE BUNNYMEN... "HEAVEN UP HERE" IS A VERY GOOD CHOICE. BY THE WAY, FOR THOSE WHO KNOW ECHO A QUESTION, WHY IS IT HARD TO FIND THE ALBUM "REVERBERATION"? YOU KNOW THE ONE WITH ANOTHER VOCALIST AND OF COURSE ANOTHER DRUMMER (pete de freitas died after the omonimous album), BECAUSE THIS TO IS A GREAT ALBUM (I HAVE IT ON A VERY WORN OUT CASSETTE)

One of the best bands if not the best band of the eighties post punk era. Heaven up Here is an album that will introduce those who have not heard the Bunnymen to a band that was never really celebrated in America. The title track along with All My Coulors are songs that could serve as an anthem for the angst teen scene of the mid eighties as well as today. DeFritas and Patterson show that the Bunnymen's rythym section was one of the best and Seargent plays those haunting yet very melodic riffs that sound like someone crying through a kazoo. Heaven Up Here can only be described as cool music for cool people. If you buy any Bunnymen albums buy this one and/or Porqupine.

This is the rock album that most truly embodies the gloomy post punk mood, ala Joy Division, the Cure, and Depeche Mode, within the context of a straight ahead four man guitar rock album. The Bunnymen carried the brooding, melancholic, foreboding torch as as well as any of their post punk contemporaries, but they did so with the swagger and talent found in the classic mold of rock stars. McCullough and DeFreites may have gone about it differently, but they had every bit as much rock star in their blood as a Jagger or a Keith Moon. That said, the Bunnymen were a truly unique (just look at who they are most often compared to, the Doors and U2, 2 bands who couldn't be more different) band and take their listeners into a world all their own on each of their first four classic albums. As the Bunnymen are their most unbridled on this record, this album expectedly gets the most mixed reviews among critics (top 60 records of ALL TIME by NME and panned with 2 stars by Rolling Stone), but appears to be the most favorite among Echo's fans. I personally feel this is the greatest of a great, great, amazingly underrated band's great works. The Bunnymen really are a tight, relaxed unit on this record, and it shows. Among McCullough's expressive (he sounds almost out of his mind on this record) baritone and literate though cryptic lyrics, DeFreites' inspiring, distictive, tribal drumming, and Pattinson's memorable bass lines, the most distinctive ingredient of the Bunnymen's sound, Will Seargent, is fittingly the one who appears to shine the brightest in this environment. He shreds through every guitar sound/noise any unorthodox post-punk (the Edge?) guitarist would dream of attempting over the next decade. As impressive and important as his creation of some the most instantly memorable shoegazerish/Gothicesque riffs (No Dark Things, Show of Strength, Over the Wall) ever, every bit as memorable with the post punk spirit as those found in a classic rock's Walk This Way or Sweet Emotion, are the creation and incorporation of so many sounds - some actually more like pure ear-splitting clickity clank noise - and atmospheres into cohesive, accessible, hard rocking songs. Considering his impressive body of work and his esteemed position - regarded, along with Johnny Marr, as Britain's greatest guitarist of the 80's - it is a strong statement when I say this album is his finest work. If you're going to own just one post punk album (and you should own lots of them), then this should be it!!!

Heaven Up Here, the re-released classic and quintessesntial 2nd album from Liverpool's new wave physchedelic quartet Echo and the Bunnymen shows a band at the height of its prowess. From the atmospeheric ballast of opener, A Show of Strength, the Bunnymen are in fine form utilizing the full talents of late drummer Pete DeFrietas on songs that pry open the ears of listeners engaged in an epic soundscape of elusive guitar riffs, obsessive bass lines and the throaty and sage-like vocals of the consumate rock star frontamn, Ian McCulloch.

Highlights include With a Hip, Turqouise Days and the ballroom blitz of the title track. The Bunnymen might have progressed as a band, releasing three more full length albums with DeFrietas in the line up, but no other album captures the group so primally. This was my white album growing up. Without Heaven Up Here, you will hear and understand, there could have never been a U2. You'll find yourself humming the lines and catch phrases of this record for years after. You'll be glad too, to have one of the most brilliant album covers of all time in your collection. A must - plain and simple.