When all that garage rock revival bullshit happened a few years ago, I kept hoping the Troggs would come back and tell everyone to stop. If not in those actual words, then just by releasing a record that would force everyone to realize they should just go back to being emo. Likewise, I’ve been quietly waiting for Echo and the Bunnymen to do the same thing for the dreadful, dreadful 80s rip-off artists who still manage to keep me up at night. But to be fair, they never left. Ian McCulloch has been releasing records forever, and they’ve been of generally decent quality. Siberia, though, the Bunnymen’s first full-length in a few years does not quite get the job done. The songs are somewhat long and mostly lack direction. The instruments pretty much sound how you expect them to — soaked in reverb and delay — but there’s also the occasional dose of misguided peppiness, which doesn’t suit them well. Who knows? Perhaps the Jesus and Mary Chain will come back and set the record straight.
