After the seismic but divisive Porcupine, their next move was going to be a make-or-break outing, a final stab out of the darkness of 80s alternative and into, if only briefly, the blinding light of the mainstream. The focus would have to be on McCulloch's voice, the band's greatest weapon but also it's biggest liability. The mad dog yelping of Porcupine would have to leave his system, and he would have to start actually singing again.  Beautifully, if he could.

The band decamped to Paris like all the great bands before them.  Recorded at Les Studios des Dames and Studio Davou, Ocean Rain is one of the most evocative recordings in the Brit Pop canon, and what's more remarkable is how they got there.  Relying less on the stark experimental guitar effects of Heaven Up Here and Porcupine, Ocean Rain represents a band liberated from the doom and gloom of their post-punk roots to find the rapturous heights of acoustic new romanticism.  More so in spirit than in sound, Paris allowed them to be something other than themselves, and in doing so the band found a collection of songs that is their best.

When it doesn't evoke the sensation of standing on a terrace gazing at the Eiffel Tower, it conjures more homegrown London images of fog, cobblestone, and trilbies, notably on “Nocturnal Me” and “The Yo-Yo Man.”  Guitarist Will Sergeant also described the album as “a bit Ben Gunn,” the fictional pirate from Treasure Island, and you have to figure he had those two nautical numbers in mind.

Speaking of Will Sergeant, he is probably the most underrated of the guitar anti-heroes.  Layered acoustic guitars and majestic string passages lend the album its overt romantic atmosphere, but Sergeant's little flourishes make it accessible as a pop record.  His counterpoints, startlingly simple in their arrangements but honed to eloquence, are as expressive as McCulloch's beautifully deranged, dramatic vocals.  The three note lick on “Crystal Days” and the meandering solo on “My Kingdom” might be the most memorable bits of music on the whole album, which is saying a lot when you consider that the iconic “Killing Moon” appears here as well.

As much as McCulloch's vocals are highlighted in the final mix, much of his work is filling in the thematic spaces left by the mannered music.  Long an undervalued lyricist, Ocean Rain is his masterclass in the memorably oblique. 

Going back to the Ben Gunn theme, McCulloch's performance evokes the moody captain of a sea-battered ship, one minute shouting at the vast expanse, “You're living proof at my fingertips!” on “Silver,” the very next sulking, “Froze to the bone in my igloo home, counting the days 'til the ice turns green,” on “The Yo-Yo Man.” 

My personal favorite comes on the build-up to the last chorus of “My Kingdom”:  “I've lost and I've gained and while I was thinking, you cut off my hands when I wanted to twist/If you know how to dance to Boney Maroney, he's doing the ballet on both of his wrists!”  Wonderful beyond words, but it would all be fussily decorous if not for the genuine gravity of songs like “The Killing Moon” and “Ocean Rain,” acute musings on death, God, love, and trysts with fate.

Though it went on to reach #4 on the UK Album Chart and “The Killing Moon” was a top ten hit, Ocean Rain failed to deliver the Liverpool legends into the mainstream consciousness for more than a fortnight.  For an album that, according to McCulloch at the time, is “the greatest ever made,” it certainly didn't sell like it.  Then again, most of the real gems don't, do they?