Fresh off their 1982 tour, Siouxsie And The Banshees returned to the studio with a new vision. Strings. Unlike many bands which were heavily leaning into the synthesizer, Siouxsie Sioux wanted to go full orchestration.
This inspiration came from their prior released single, Fireworks, which Sioux said about it, "Fireworks" indicated the direction we wanted for the album. We wanted strings ... John [McGeoch] wanted a machine but Steven [Severin] and I said it had to be real strings. They give a real, earthy, rich sound. You could hear the strings spitting and breathing and wheezing. Me and Steve have always wanted our music to be performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. We've always thought our songs would suit orchestration. Real strings have a very physical sound".
The album gave the Banshees the opportunity to go over the top with their sound, exploring and exploiting everything. If they came up with something big, engineer Mike Hedges would figure out how to make it bigger. He encouraged the group to fiddle with effects, and experiment with everything.
This was very reminiscent of the sounds I would later hear in their 1990 released Face To Face for Batman Returns, and what initially drew me to the Banshees. Oh my gosh, yes please, more of this!
Tracks one through three, Cascade, Green Fingers, and Obsession are so tightly woven that they feel like one long track that would be remiss without the other. Unfortunately, track four does a full 180, going back to the punchy punk sound for which Siouxsie And The Banshees carved their initial fame from. It's not bad, per se, but this sudden shift leaves the latter track not really feeling like it fits with what came before it.
Or perhaps it's the first three songs which don't fit with the rest of the album. The reason being that things didn't necessarily shift back to the stringy and deep sounds of Dreamhouse's openers for the remainder of what would be called, side A. It did, however, still continue to have that experimental sound aspect to it, which helped it to stay intriguing to hear.
Things picked back up with the side B opener, Melt!, which once again incorporated the strings with a deep rich sound. Painted Bird picked up the speed, and I really dug the fading echoes, and drum work which the track felt built around.
A Kiss In The Dreamhouse wraps up with Coccoon and Slowdive, which is like a nice layer of icing on the cake. While Cocoon has a jaunty almost doowop sound to it, albeit in a darker way which only Siouxsie Sioux could deliver, Slowdive slickly incorporates strings back into the psychedelic punk mix, giving you one last fist pump before departing.
I won't call the album perfect, but man, it could have been. It was right on the cusp for me, had it not been for the second half of the first side. Still, this puts The Cure in a tough spot. Their 1982 released Pornography, which I'll listen to tomorrow, needs to deliver hard to even be a contender.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS July 19, 1980 |
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS July 19, 1986 |
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