Echo & The Bunnymen end a 12-year wait for new music with Apples For Isaac, their 13th studio album and first collection of newly written songs since 2014’s Meteorites. The album reunites Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant for 11 new songs that carry the unmistakable atmosphere of the Bunnymen into another chapter.

For a band whose catalog includes such enduring songs as “The Killing Moon,” “The Cutter,” “Lips Like Sugar” and “Bring On The Dancing Horses,” there’s plenty of history behind Apples For Isaac. But McCulloch approached the record with particular attention to the songs themselves, especially the lyrics. He has said the long gap between albums was partly due to wanting everything he wrote to make sense, even if that meaning remained cryptic, and that the finished record comes unusually close to what he originally heard in his head.

“Brussels Is Haunted,” “The Light That Surrounds You” and “Take Me By The Hand” offer strong introductions to an album built around McCulloch’s instantly recognizable voice, Sergeant’s guitar work and the dramatic sweep that has defined Echo & The Bunnymen since their earliest records. The album also includes “Can’t Be Sold,” “I’ll Be Your Sunshine,” “Hijacked,” “The Honey,” “Unstoppable Force,” “Lab Rats Ran,” “Asimov” and closing track “We Prayed In The Dark.”

Apples For Isaac also carries a poignant connection to late Blondie drummer Clem Burke, a longtime friend of McCulloch who contributed to the album and died while it was being completed. His presence on the record makes Apples For Isaac one of the final chapters in Burke’s remarkable recording career.

More than four decades after Crocodiles introduced Echo & The Bunnymen to the world, Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant remain committed to creating new music together. With Apples For Isaac, they add 11 new songs to one of alternative rock’s most distinctive catalogs and close the longest gap between albums of original material in the band’s history.