With the departure of Robert Smith from the band, the Banshees were in need of a new guitarist. John Valentine Carruthers, would make his debut in that role. His first appearance was on the 1984 EP, The Thorn, before heading into the studio for what would become 1986's Tinderbox.
The album has been praised as one of the best from Siouxsie and the Banshees, with verbal accolades going to the fierce drumming of Budgie, and complexe synthesizer work of Steven Severin. Some critics have even gone so far as to call it their all-time favorite album...like ever.
Well, that's quite a high bit of praise, and a high bar. Tinderbox must be amazing, no?
No.
Maybe I missed something. What I heard in the Banshees seventh studio album was nothing worth writing home about. While definitely delivering a straight up rock sound, I also found it to simply be loud. As if the drums were trying to drown out Siouxsie, while she was trying to drown out the guitars, which they were trying to drown out the keyboards. The whole thing resulted in a wall of sound, which frankly made my ears ring, despite not being turned up high.
The songs also felt bloated, over extended in time, and without any sort of hook to really draw you in to any of them. By song seven, I felt like I had been listening to it for hours, and couple with the sheer volume, it wasn't necessarily enjoyable.
There was one standout track among the bunch, that being Cities In Dust. This was actually a song I had heard in prior shuffle sessions of my entire library, and one which has actually been on my shuffle list for a while. However, beyond that, Tinderbox really doesn't offer anything for me. I love Siouxsie's voice, but it doesn't feel utilized here.
What I disliked most about Tinderbox was that it made me think about my music collection as a whole. I contemplated if it was time to go through my thousands of CD's and reassess what was there versus what I actually loved, and therefore needed. Basically, it made me wonder if it was time to consider downsizing, and that's not a feeling I wanted to have.
Tinderbox gets a big fat "F". Not only for being a stinky album, but for making me reassess my life choices. Basically, tomorrow's review, The Cure's The Head On The Door is poised to already be professed as the winner...Unless of course it's all the more worse, and I don't know, burns my house down, or something...
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS July 23, 1983 |
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS July 23, 1988 |
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