Echo & The Bunnymen: Heaven Up Here (Sire/Warner Bros.)

AT FIRST, I had Echo and the Bunnymen pigeon-holed as doomy Doorsy dumbos. But then, slowly, cautiously, Crocodiles slithered up my leg. It began harmlessly enough with an odd affection for 'Villiers Terrace', and a controlled pleasure called 'Do It Clean'. Soon I was eaten alive, an appreciation for the album as a whole. It wasn't great, there were indeed gaps like the ambitious, faulty 'Happy Dead Men', a not very decent stab at acid affectation. But they'd survived the sin by Liverpool association.