Albums: Echo & The Bunnymen – Apples For Isaac

Echo & the Bunnymen – Apples for Isaac


Take Me by the Hand; Can't Be Sold; Brussels Is Haunted; I'll Be Your Sunshine; Hijacked; The Honey; An Unstoppable Force; The Light That Surrounds You; Lab Rats Ran; Asimov; We Prayed in the Dark

(BMG)

There is something wonderfully defiant about Echo & the Bunnymen returning with a new album in 2026. Nearly five decades into a career built on mystery, melancholy and some of the most atmospheric guitar music Britain has produced, they could be forgiven for simply trading on the past. Instead, Apples for Isaac feels like a band still itching to see what happens when they plug in and start again.

It has been a long wait for a collection of new songs, but Apples for Isaac rarely sounds like a museum piece. Ian McCulloch’s voice is older and more weathered, yet that only adds weight to songs that increasingly circle around time, mortality, relationships and the strange business of getting older. Will Sergeant remains the great sonic conjurer, his guitar capable of moving from chiming beauty to something altogether more unsettling within the space of a few bars.

Take Me By The Hand gets things moving with purpose, while Can’t Be Sold carries a swagger that recalls the Bunnymen at their most instinctive. Then comes Brussels Is Haunted , a track that manages to be both immediate and unmistakably strange — the sort of song that sounds familiar without ever becoming predictable.

There is plenty of light amid the shadows. I’ll Be Your Sunshine brings a warmer, more melodic touch, while The Honey has the kind of effortless charm that reminds you why this band has remained such a distinctive presence for so long. But it is when the Bunnymen embrace the unusual that the album truly sparks.

Lab Rats Ran is gloriously eccentric, its saxophone adding a left-field twist, while Asimov ventures into more futuristic territory. These moments prevent the record from settling into comfortable nostalgia. Apples for Isaac may carry the fingerprints of the past, but it isn't content simply to replay them.

Apples for Isaac isn't trying to be their classic album Ocean Rain again. Nor should it. Those records belong to another time. What matters here is that Echo & the Bunnymen have found a way to acknowledge their history without allowing it to dictate their future.

This is mature Bunnymen music: occasionally dark, frequently melodic, sometimes downright strange and still carrying that unmistakable sense of Liverpool mystery. After all these years, the Bunnymen haven't lost their ability to make the familiar feel slightly otherworldly.