Who's for Hawaii?

A Bestiary of the Creatures. Five Stars.

I don't usually do complilations, but this one is a cohesive library: it is the collection of pre-Boomerang Creatures, containing their debut EP Wild Things, the album Feast and couple of singles.

The Creatures were a spin-off of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Siouxsie Sioux and drummer Budgie teamed up in 1981 and made Wild Things, seemingly as an experiment with no intention of it becoming a long-running off-shoot.

Wild Things is five tracks worth of jungle percussion that holds promise not always lived up to. It gets off to an explosive start with Mad-Eyed Screamer. Anyone familiar with the Banshees will notice that Sioux didn't really have to change her writing style to accomodate the extremes of exotica that are the trademark of early Creatures.

So Unreal proves that Budgie is simply an amazing percussionist. The whole track is nothing but percussive elements and Sioux's reverberating voice. The melody makes it beautiful.

But Not Them has energetic drumming, I'll give it that. But it's repetitive to a fault. Sioux sings all three verses exactly the same, and then repeats them in the same order. A highly boring track.

Wild Thing is dissonance incarnate. Lots of theatrical pauses and her voice grates. Moving along...

Thumb is lovely. Soft traffic sound affects(it's about a hitchhiker), the percussion a gentle accent, Sioux nearly a cappella to start. It's haunting and understated, very slowly gaining power. It's a relief after the last two and a high point to end the EP on.

However, it's only an indication of things to come. In 1983, a year after the Banshees' creative highpoint of A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, the Creatures returned with the full album Feast. Taking Hawaii for inspiration, it opens with bonechilling, howling metallic dementia. Then gentle wind chimes on the tide take over while she sings the beautiful Morning Dawning. This is the only record I think she did where she lets other singers on. Wordless chanting backs her up on this elegant lament.

Inoa'Ole doesn't have English lyrics. It's the strangest song they ever did, featuring prominent chanting (courtesy of The Lamalani Hula Academy Hawaiian Chanters) which fades out as Budgie and Siouxsie come into play. She vocalises wonderfully and it is highly atmospheric.

Ice House is an erotic glance at tropical flowers. It's weird and suitably disturbing and gothic. Like much of Feast, it's not so much a song in itself, as it blends into the tracks before and after.

Therefore it segues perfectly into Dancing on Glass, an imagery packed little gem.

Then it's on to the good-natured Gecko. Percussion is fabulous, and the song is memorable. It's silly nonsense, which is rare from Sioux. There's also Jungle background (recorded in somebody's backyard) which adds colour.

Sky Train is a torrential downpour of drums. This one is Budgie's show. Sioux howls a bit. Her one line is buried. It's a really freaky "tune," but the ambiance fits perfectly onto the rest of the album.

Festival of Colours gets back to tribal chanting, with Sioux joining in. It's a wonderful track; sounds like the title, which is all you need to know.

Miss the Girl was the single. It got to No. 21, which isn't bad for a rather eccentric, though beautifully crafted track with a disturbing lyric apparantly about an abusive relationship.

Next up is A Strutting Rooster. Just like Sky Train, it's a drum powerhouse. Scarce any lyric and Sioux drowns her voice in echo anyway. Actually, the lyric is a traditional Hawaiian riddle.

More sound affects open Flesh. It's the finale and exceptionally unpleasant. It moves between Sioux dispassionately describing a decadent party and a dissonant chorus that flies in the face of the overall mood and dissolves in the end into cacophonous noise.

Then there's the B-side to Miss the Girl, and idle curiosity called Hot Springs in the Snow. It's an instrumental with no melody to speak of. Percussive noodling with a return from that metallic voice on Morning Dawning.

Lastly, two months after Feast and Miss the Girl, another single came out: Right Now/Weathercade. The latter plays first. Weathercade is probably one of the Creatures best tracks. It's got the exotic edge still, but also manages to stand as a good song. By far most of Feast blends into a one-of-a-kind atmosphere, but when taken apart, only a few of the songs are good standing alone.

Lastly, there's Right Now. Finger snapping and...a big band! The lyric was originally for Mel Torme back in the sixties and how the Creatures got ahold I'll never know. It's a hilarious pastiche and also a nifty little tune in its own right. The single made it to No. 14 in the U.K.

The Creatures disbanded until the late eighties when Boomerang, their most celebrated work, came out. Inspiration turned to Spain for that more accessible album.

If your favorite Banshees records are the McGeogh triptych, and you wish they'd done something afterwards with half as much bite, this is the record to get. Feast is completely out of print and A Bestiary manages to come to just 60 minutes, which is pretty decent for a comp.