Siouxsie and the Banshees-the Scream

SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES-THE SCREAM (1978) Imagine the scene -you get rejection kicked in your face time and time again , chasing the dream of a record companies support. You see other bands that you started the same time as you dazzle(excuse the pun) and then disintegrate before you have even put music to vinyl. You gig solidly for a year and a half with no break through. Well that’s what happened to the banshees. They were well known for appearing at the 100 club but there was such a gap between that gig and the Scream album that followed in November 1978. In that time they were gigging almost everywhere and for all their hard work they signed to Polydor in 1978 and released ‘The Scream’. The album its quite simply one of the best post punk albums to be released in the 70’s. This album featured the drum work of Kenny Morris and the excellent guitar work of John McKay. Now with hindsight you can see that in the banshees story that they tend to get forgotten about, however the way they played in terms gave the banshees a very dark edge to the sound. In some ways they set the template. The album stats with the Track ‘Pure’ which is a very small build up to the album. The track then goes into the track Jigsaw feeling’. If there was an track you wanted to hearing brilliant guitar work of McKay this is it. Its quite a driven song to the drumming of Morris and the bass work of Steven Severin. The song ends with a cutting guitar riff. It then goes into Overground which would appear again on the 1984 EP the thorn. Its almost like a acoustic version , with the drums and bass low down in the mix . Then the song builds up to the chorus , with the guitar work strumming over a almost military drum beat. I remember reading the book that was written by the Manager of the banshees at the time and he stated that Kenny Morris was not a very good drummer, but believe me he had definately found his feet at the time of this record. Carcass the next track was a track that was played around the hunt for a record a label and I believe it was on many demo tapes. Its a typical punk song, very full of energy. The album to me features Siouxsie approaching singing from a different angle than the other artists, there were songs in this album dealing with split personalities and addiction. Not the usual type of songs sung by female artists at that time. A theme that was to appear on this album and in 1983 was that they were recording cover versions of Beatles songs, namely from the white album. They were to cover 'dear prudence’ and achieve some success later on. This version of ‘Helter Skelter’ has very little bass in the mix, not as driven as the version of the nocturne 1983 album. Mirage has almost a psychedelic guitar intro. This was a popular song on the peel sessions they recorded at the time. Nicotine stain is a punk riff song , sort of ridiculing oneself on addition to nicotine . The final two tracks are suburban relapse and Switch. Switch is a masterpiece. Builds up neatly, the guitar work on it is brilliant. In some ways it could be argued that the Banshees had hit the ground running and it was almost impossible to maintain. Inner tensions within the band would mean that 'Join Hands’ released the following year would be poorly recieved and the band split in two later in 1979. Also worth noting is 'Hong Kong Garden’ was the catchy pop song, the scream remains a gothic / post punk masterpiece that will never be matched. http://open.spotify.com/album/4jOwAkMW3ZdrGjcTJHEsnu