My intro to the Banshees

A Kiss in the Dreamhouse is the most experimental album the Banshees ever did. It's full of odd little bits and pieces that form cohesive, structured songs. And every song does something different, tries something new. It also sounds like Juju's exorcism. And Siouxsie's voice on the entire thing has an extraordinary beauty that it really never had before.

Cascade is one of my favorite songs of theirs. It builds into one crescendo after another, carrying you along in a sweep of strange majesty. The lyric is bizarre in the trademark sense, not the stomach-churning sense of the last record.

A recorder is the first of many odd stylistic choices on Green Fingers. I get visions of pagan rites when I hear it. I never tended to pay much attention to it before, but it's really surprisingly good. There's a lot going on in it.

Obsession is our main hangover from Juju. It's a vivid and totally twisted track about...well, obsession. What else? The music drags like a funeral dirge except for a surprisingly beautiful (though short) cello solo.

She's a Carnival is set up like a more typical rock tune, but it's a really irrepressable song. I love the picture it paints and the off-the-wall organ solo just thrown on the end.

I do not like Circle at all. It's tape-loop experimentation, and has a really depressing lyric. I think the loop is effective if it's supposed to drive you insane from the endless repetition. But I could do without it.

Melt! on the other hand... The melody is beautiful, enticing and really ominous. Siouxsie's voice is at its peak of expression. The music in entirely complimentary and the lyric is a huge slice of eroticism. A standout.

Painted Bird is very close to my heart. It's a wonderful song, but it ran heavily in my head last winter (Dec 07 - Feb 08) when my life wasn't going so well. So every time I hear it all the memories and emotions come flooding back. Obviously I can't quite look at normally, so I'll refrain from commenting.

Then there's the Banshees first and only foray into jazz -- Cocoon. For that reason alone I love it. The lyric is more bizarreness and it has a cool feel to it. You can listen to this one with your feet up and relax as it winds down.

Slowdive is not a favorite, but it's an important harbinger of the future: it's got a string arrangement. I don't like it for two reasons. One is the pointless, empty lyric which seems to be weird for the sake of it. Two is that it's a twisted commercial pop tune, and that just sort of grates on my nerves. I like the music toward the end, but it's far from great.

Despite those two less than perfect tracks, I love this album. It's one of their absolute best, and it is also the first of their albums that I heard.