After twelve years spent carrying one of post-punk’s great catalogues through theatres, festivals, and anniversary tours, Echo & The Bunnymen have reopened the door to the studio. The Liverpool band have announced Apples for Isaac, their thirteenth album and first full-length collection of newly written material since 2014’s Meteorites. The album arrives on September 18th via BMG.
Its first single, “Brussels Is Haunted,” received its initial radio play on BBC Radio 6 Music from Chris Hawkins before appearing on streaming services, accompanied by an animated video directed by Belgian filmmaker Jef De Smet.
Behind the kit is the late Clem Burke of Blondie, whose performance on “Brussels Is Haunted” was recorded before his death in April 2025 and stands among his final studio work. His punchy, propulsive drumming combines with McCulloch’s strummed guitar to give the song its forward motion, while broad sheets of Will Sergeant’s electric guitar supply that unmistakable Bunnymen scale. McCulloch moves through the verses in a slightly gruff, poetic cadence in between the song’s bright, reverbed refrain built around its title. The song’s backing “sha-la-la-las” add a distinctly ’60s pop lift, allowing the chorus to sweep away some of the tension gathered in the verses.
At times its retro contours occasionally point toward sounds that Britpop would later revisit, although Liverpool’s Sergeant and McCulloch had been folding ’60s pop and psychedelia into post-punk years before Madchester went shopping for flares.
As the first glimpse of the band’s next chapter, “Brussels Is Haunted” makes a persuasive follow-up to Meteorites. And to our ears, it lands—by a hare’s breadth—closer to the polished psychedelic pop of their 1987 self-titled album. There is also a pleasing geographical echo to the comparison: portions of that 1987 album were recorded at ICP Studios in Brussels.
Lyrically, McCulloch casts Brussels as a city crowded with the people, places, and events lodged in its collective memory. Waterloo and two world wars share the frame with romance, nightlife, frozen vodka, and Belgian pop eccentric Plastic Bertrand. Private recollection brushes against European history until the capital becomes a civic séance, calling its former inhabitants back to haunt its streets.
De Smet’s accompanying visual extends that idea into an animated portrait of Brussels occupied by its monuments, famous visitors, cultural memory, and accumulated dead. History, art, romance, and war pass through the city as overlapping layers, turning its streets and squares into repositories for lives that have disappeared. The video’s credits acknowledge the use of AI in portions of its imagery.
Watch the video below:
Speaking recently with MOJO, McCulloch attributed part of the long interval between Bunnymen albums to the pandemic. The greater concern was lyrical: he wanted each song to make sense or remain, in his phrase, “cryptically important.” McCulloch also said that Apples for Isaac sounds closer to what he originally heard in his head than any record he can remember making.
Burke’s performance on “Brussels is Haunted” forms part of a larger contribution to Apples for Isaac: the Blondie drummer appears on ten of its eleven songs. Echo & The Bunnymen described their longtime friend as “integral to the making of the album,” closing their dedication with the simple farewell: “Love you Clem X.”
Apples for Isaac will be available on black vinyl, picture disc, signed test pressing, CD, and digital formats, with clothing and tote-bag bundles also available. Orders placed through the band’s store include an exclusive print signed by Ian McCulloch.
Pre-order or pre-save the album here.
Apples for Isaac tracklist:
Take Me By The Hand
Can’t Be Sold
Brussels Is Haunted
I’ll Be Your Sunshine
Hijacked
The Honey
Unstoppable Force
The Light That Surrounds You
Lab Rats Ran
Asimov
We Prayed In The Dark
Echo & The Bunnymen live dates:
July 24–26 — Forest Fest, County Laois, Ireland
August 7 — Fiesta de Begoña, Gijón, Spain
August 8 — Festival Noroeste Estrella Galicia, A Coruña, Spain
September 22 — Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London, UK — Sold Out
September 23 — Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London, UK
December 20 — Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, UK
December 22 — Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, UK
Find ticket information through the band’s official website.
Follow Echo & The Bunnymen:
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The post Echo & The Bunnymen Announce First Album of New Songs in 12 Years: “Apples for Isaac” — Watch Video for “Brussels is Haunted” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
