Customer Reviews

Siberia

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

They really hit a stride with this release. All Because of You Days is a special song. The jangles are beautiful as they rotate with the beats. I can't find a single problem with any song. This Siberia doesn't leave me cold, it leaves me with wanting more.

Echo and the Bunnymen remain as vital and as vibrant as ever, and SIBERIA stands tall among their best works.
On this album, the Bunnymen - and producer Hugh Jones (HEAVEN UP HERE) have found the perfect blend of Ian McCulloch's melodic romanticism and Will Sergeant's driving, jangling, soul-burnishing guitars. These are songs that pull at the heart and rouse the spirit. And they'll sound just as great after the five hundredth play; this is a keeper.
SIBERIA pulses with energy, from the relentless forward momentum of "Stormy Weather" to the earnest passion of "All Because of You Days"; the devilish little keyboards of "Make Us Blind"; the wickedly witty wordplay of "Sideways Eight" and the unabashed balladry of "What if We Are". Even the glum notion that "Everything Kills You" becomes an anthem of life-affirming beauty.
Highlights are numerous, with "In the Margins" first among them. This swooping, soaring dream vision of a song belongs up in the ninth sphere with such Bunnymen classics as "The Killing Moon".
The title track, coldly beautiful and complex, benefits from repeated listening. There is a lot going on here, including some of McCulloch's best lyrics:
"Where am I
Still trying to find the light that burns the northern sky
A rarer borealis
Born to be
Made of lights"
"Parthenon Drive" takes a psychedelic-tinged, guitar-throbbing trip down memory lane, while "Scissors in the Sand" offers a wonderfully nightmarish jumble of childhood memories: `magic' trees, "Something on the roof", silverfish, ventriloquism ....
"Of a Life" looks to both past and future as McCulloch enthusiastically declares himself done with "begging", "bends" and "jumping off the mountain", and after "a song to learn and sing/Of a life requited".
SIBERIA delivers an album full of terrific songs, to requite the faith of Bunnymen acolytes and novices alike.

This has to be the comeback record of the century. From Crocodiles through to their no-name 1987 album Echo maintained a consistently high standard, perhaps peaking with Heaven up Here or Porcupine and tailing a little at either end. But after 1987 it was down the toilet, fast. Oh well, their inspiration lasted longer than that of 99% of rock groups. Now, out of nowhere, comes this Siberia and it's as if they're just out of the studio from that earlier string of five. McCulloch's voice has softened a touch, the wildness mostly gone, but that's not out of character with the songs. Amazingly, with a new rhythm section they still manage to evoke the heyday of Pattison and de Freitas, and Sergeant is right back to form, commenting and colouring with plenty to say. Lyrics, always the strong point of this group, are relevant to 2006 and to the group's, how shall we say it, maturity, without being fuddy-duddy or trying to be echt-hip. As my son says, sounds like they've learned from all the groups that have been inspired by them. Let's hope this is the start of an indian summer and not the last gasp.

SIBERIA offers a perfect synergy of those two disparate geniuses, Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant: plaintively gorgeous melodies, lyrics that manage to be polished and heartfelt at the same time, songs as finely crafted as anything from Tiffany's - all bulwarked and meshed and laced `round with enough chiming, swirling, thundering, mesmerizing, sizzling and sometimes downright ear-shredding guitars to send anyone into aural rapture. And it's as fresh and vibrant and commanding as in Bunnymen days of yore.
Darker, tougher; more focused than EVERGREEN and FLOWERS (though it springs from the same side of the field, perhaps from wilder soil), SIBERIA hints of `classic' this and that, and references many Bunny things past. A little Electrafixion bubbles through there as well.
But this album doesn't go back. It stakes out its own territory, defined by power and solidity; imagination and style; grace and humor. It has that Bunnymen sense of beauty even amid pain. The lyrics are clever, but not so clever they look like they came out of a Modern Poetry Writing 101 class. They have depth and emotional honesty. And producer Hugh Jones (a HEAVEN UP HERE veteran) certainly earns his keep - everything sounds terrific.
Songs range from the sweetly poignant, soaringly melodic "In the Margins", a classic Bunnymen anthem of the heart, to the toughness and drama and general spookiness conjured by "Scissors in the Sand", a little ditty guaranteed to breed paranoia; from "Of a Life"'s jaunty exuberance to the unapologetic romanticism of "What if We Are"; from the tempest-swept plateaus of "Stormy Weather" to the icy fortress of the title track.
"Parthenon Drive" pays hard-charging, psychedelicized homage to Frank Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year" ("Spinning `round at thirty-three/I tried to find the worth in me"), while "Make Us Blind" offers the Infernal response to the sunny innocence of 2001's "Make Me Shine". "All Because of You Days" pulls at the heart with earnest lyrics and passionate vocals, while "Sideways Eight" gets down-and-dirty raucous with insouciant flair. "Everything Kills You" - in the tradition of Bunnymen masterpieces "The Killing Moon" and "Nothing Lasts Forever" -- celebrates the beauty of life even as it laments its tragedy.
Optimism in despair, light in darkness, and the power of a scorching guitar solo to uplift the soul have always marked the best Bunnymen work. SIBERIA delivers it all.

"Siberia" isn't quite a return to the Bunnymen's glory days--I don't think they can ever truly replace the '80s rhythm section, for one thing--but it's better than I expected. The entire album sounds great, featuring lush, hard-to-resist guitars, but it's a bit generic at times. However, that may be because so many bands have chased the original Bunnymen's sound in the past 15 years. Two numbers recapture a good bit of the old excitement: "Parthenon Drive" and "Of A Life." Not surprisingly, these are the tracks where you can most hear Mac's choppy rhythm guitar parts and the current bassist and drummer best ape the original lineup's sound.

My biggest problem with the album is that Mac's voice is getting a little frayed around the edges, especially in the lower register. It's certainly not Waits/Dylan/Reed ragged, but there's some harshness that I don't find entirely pleasant. I assume it's just the way he sings these days, and not because he had a cold when recording the vocals. It'll be interesting to hear how he handles the older material live.

So, while this isn't a great album, it's certainly enjoyable--and might even win a few new converts.

To be honest with you I did not expect much from this Bunnymen album. Their last full-length CD, Flowers, never really sat right with me. Perhaps it was the lyrical content, or the somewhat lackluster production, I don't know. It never really gelled for me. Siberia though... what a welcome surprise.

The best thing about this collection is Will's strong presence. His jangling guitar work is some of the best it's been in ages; swirling around the songs giving your ears a chance to explore the Bunnymen's sound-scape as if the last twenty-odd years had been frozen in time. Tracks like 'Siberia' are a fine example of why this band has always been as much Will's as it is Mac's. When his guitar takes a break at the halfway point you find yourself wanting him to return.

Speaking of Mac, or writing about him as it were, he's in fine form too. His older, mellowed vocals seem more comfortable to him now. Gone are his attempts to recapture the bark of his younger days and instead you find him comfortably crooning some fo his best lyrics in years. Certainly his writing is far better than it was on Slideling, his solo album from 2003. His voice is still one of the best when whispering out a lyric or crooning out a stanza. He makes the perfect compliment to the psychedelic showmanship of Will's guitar.

The first single, 'Stormy Weather' is classic Bunnymen and the production of Hugh Jones is a welcome touch on this CD. The much commented 'Parthenon Drive' revisits older cuts like 'The Cutter' while finding a mature Mac reflecting on his life a la Frank Sinatra in 'It was a very good year.' Will's guitar in Parthenon Drive is too exquisite for mere words to relate.

Tracks like 'Scissors in the Sand' take you back to the old days of the Bunnymen, yet on this CD they seem almost out of place with far more mature and complex songs coming from the band. The final track, 'What if we are?' an ode to the eternal optimism of love, gives us promise that the next album still has the capability of topping the last.

That is something that Echo and the Bunnymen have always been able to deliver. The promise that their best will always be surpassed by their next. For the past twenty years I've been a fan and I expect that if they're still recording in twenty more I'll still be surprised that they are as vibrant and amazing as they are today.

I was rolling down the road listening to XM Radio when they played 3 tracks off of this album. The DJ came on and said that was 3 tracks from Siberia. I immediately went out and bought it. It's the first album of theirs I've purchased. It really brings back the best of the jangly 80s alternative rock. The songs are well written, well produced and well performed. I don't think there's a weak song on the album. Probably the most underrated or at least unrecognized releases of 2005. I highly recommend it.

***If you like this album, check out The Feelies. A somewhat obscure band from the late 80s/early 90s. Check out "It's Only Life". A true classic....seriously. You won't be disappointed.

I picked up this CD the day it came out. I listened to it roughly five times that evening and I for the life of me can not find a bad track on the whole thing. This is the "missing album" after 'Ocean Rain'. This carries old Bunnymen into the future much better than the grey album ever could.

This is THE album to buy.

Since Echo's reunion, they've had some major successes. Their reunion cd, EVERGREEN, was a little too polished but a great cd nonetheless. The follow-up, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE, was touted in the English music press as the cd most worthy of the Bunnymen name since OCEAN RAIN. FLOWERS was a bit of a disappointment however, sounding a little ordinary following the genius of WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE. Even Mac said in interview recently that he doesn't really care for the cd.

This new cd accomplishes what FLOWERS attempted. This cd marries a heavier guitar sound to the beauty of WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE. The guitar sound harkens back to the Bunnymen sound of old. It's a great cd. Lyrically it has to do with middle-age and its disappointments. It's a revealing look at a band that wonders if they've "hit rock bottom". They are clearly a long way from rock bottom considering the majesty of this new cd.

(Check out my list of Post-reunion Echo and the Bunnymen recordings.)

Having heard all three of the previous "comeback-era" Bunnymen records, I have to say that of all of them, "Siberia" comes the closest to capturing not only that elusive Bunnymen sound, but a healthy helping of the songwriting brilliance that defined the group back in the 80s. Don't get me wrong: "Evergreen" and its follow-ups had some interesting sonics, and great melodies wound their way throughout. But this one actually knocks it outta the ballpark with great, memorable songs such as "Parthenon Drive," "Of A Life," and "Stormy Weather" which is easily as good as any of the group's classic singles. Ian's voice is more ragged, sure, but he still has enough charm to pull it off. Its not at all an exaggeration to call this one the "best since the 80s."