Ocean Rain

The songs were written in 1983 and mostly recorded in early 1984. The Killing Moon was produced by the band at Crescent in Bath, with vocals and drums finished in Liverpool. Most of the rest was made in Paris with a 35-piece orchestra, with Henri Loustau assisting on the strings and Adam Peters arranging. McCulloch was unhappy with his Paris vocals and re-recorded most of them in Liverpool. Sergeant wanted lush orchestration, but not Mantovani: something with a twist. Gil Norton engineered and mixed, Henri Loustau engineered, and the original LP credits the producer as All Concerned.

The singles came out on 20 January (The Killing Moon), 13 April (Silver) and 6 July 1984 (Seven Seas), the first time the band had released more than two singles from one album. The album was marketed as the greatest ever made. McCulloch later said that began as a joke to Rob Dickins, managing director of Warner Bros., which Dickins then put on the poster. Seven Seas had its live debut at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 October 1983, and Thorn of Crowns began life as a song called Cucumber.

In the studio, de Freitas added xylophones and glockenspiels to his usual kit, Pattinson used an old reverb machine at des Dames, and Sergeant played the solo on My Kingdom on a Washburn acoustic guitar that he distorted through a valve radio. He said Thorn of Crowns is based on an eastern scale. The cover photograph shows the band in a rowing boat inside Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall. The 2003 reissue added eight bonus tracks, among them Angels and Devils, recorded at the Automatt in San Francisco as the B-side of Silver, and a 2008 collector's edition added a disc of the band's 1983 Royal Albert Hall concert.

It reached 4 in the UK and spent 26 weeks on the chart, and also reached 87 in the US, 10 in New Zealand and 22 in Sweden. UK singles were Silver (30), Seven Seas (16) and The Killing Moon (9). The album went Gold.

Reception at release was mixed. Rolling Stone's Parke Puterbaugh gave it two stars and called it too often a monochromatic dirge, while The Times' Max Bell praised its romantic sweetness. Later opinion changed: AllMusic's Jason Ankeny gave it five stars, and Mark Blacklock wrote in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die that it stands the test of time better than any other Bunnymen album. NME placed it 276th on its 2013 list.

Chris Jones, reviewing the 2008 edition for BBC Music, called it the last truly great record the band made, saying the 35-piece orchestra helped Nocturnal Me and the title track but that The Yo Yo Man could flounder under intrusive arrangements. The Guardian's 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die entry describes an epic orchestral pop collection with luscious strings, gently brushed drums and tremolo-laden guitars. Rolling Stone's 1984 review singled out Thorn of Crowns as the low point and Crystal Days and Seven Seas as enjoyable respites.

In September 2008 the band played the album in full at the Royal Albert Hall with a 16-piece string section, one of three such gigs along with New York and Liverpool. The Guardian's Angus Batey noted that five of its nine tracks mention the colour blue in their lyrics, and called The Killing Moon the night's most dizzying high.