The Scream

Despite having to wait to unleash their music, the ultimate results were not in any way diminished by this lapse of time. In fact, this album is an absolutely groundbreaking collection of music, that went on to influence the whole alternative movement throughout the 80's and 90's.

"The Scream " opens with the slow burning and rolling bass lines of "Pure". An uneasy nightmarish atmosphere, is splintered by fractured high frequency guitar sounds. Initial signs of the tribal beats that became the "Banshees" trade mark are also apparent.

Every one of the 10-tracks on here is a triumph, from the reelings of "Jigsaw Feeling" to the slow overtures of "Overground". Siouxsie chants and barks over the (then) futuristically twisted and bent slant on New Wave - part arthouse and part street culture, The Banshees could almost lay claim to having invented "the loop", evidence of which is found on the repeating guitar phrase on "Metal Postcard".

This album is a piece of history and firm evidence of the effect that the late 70's had on modern music and culture. Play this album today and it is still relevant and timeless.

- Soviet Union

The Scream is scary stuff, sounding like the next step on from The Velvets/Nico, aided by that creepy cover (influenced by film The Swimmer) and Steve Lillywhite's production. In the time that the Banshees had waited to record, they had come up with a record that they were clear about: Pure is the opening mantra (pre-Sonic Youth sonics with Sioux's screaming), leading into Jigsaw Feeling, which explores that bass/guitar/drums/vocals sound in a manner that Joy Division would (the end sees the beats go into overdrive, prediciting stuff like Disorder). Tracks like Overground & Carcass fit with the alienation of the times (the latter is one of the many songs influenced by JG Ballard's Crash); while the opening half closes on a cover of The Beatles'Helter Skelter (the intention was The Manson Family's version of Helter Skelter, playing wity taboos and predicting records by NIN & Scraping Foetus off the Wheel).

Mirage is the closest thing to the pop of debut single Hong Kong Garden; the marker for this record was Hong Kong Garden's flipside Voices: dark, sinister stuff. Metal Postcard (Mittageisen) is another key Banshees moment and it's songs like this & Nicotine Stain that would influence bands like The Cure (Pornography) and PIL (Metal Box; McKay's guitar sound precedes Keith Levene's). The Scream concludes on the six-minute plus Switch (paying no concessions to accusations of prog-dom- similar to Magazine)which shows the original Banshees in full-flight moving towards another realm...

Sadly the follow-up Join Hands was patchy, band pressures and a lack of songs made it a bit of a disappointment & shortly after McKay and Morris walked. The trio of albums (Kaleidoscope, Ju-Ju, Kiss in the Dreamhouse) recorded with the late John McGeoch are almost as great as The Scream (afterwards the Banshees were a bit patchy), but this remains in many ways their ultimate statement and one of the greatest debut albums released. Oh, and possibly the invention of post-punk as we know it!

I'm really giving this 4 and half stars, because there is one thing that does let this album down - the muddy production. Whilst there is nothing wrong with the mixing, the actual recording quality of the instruments and voices is not good. The songs are a different matter though...

The awesome 'Switch' is on this album, which remained a concert favourite throughout their career, but there are other great songs that lasted their career like 'Jigsaw Feeling' and the Beatles' 'Helter Skelter'.