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Almost exactly thirty years ago I truanted from school with a group of teenage friends, hitch-hiked to Leeds, and lied about my age at the door of the University Students Union. All to see a band that we had heard of, but knew nothing about. It was Siouxsie and The Banshees. From the moment Sioux stepped out on stage you knew something special was about to happen. They were loud, raw, rough, and they were brilliant. Sioux strutted about, high kicking and twirling a loop of her microphone lead like a cabaret stripper (she still does this). All in a pair of black, thigh length, stiletto boots that must have been crippling to walk in. I was instantly struck by her cropped black hair, iconic eye makeup, and jarring atonal voice. We couldn’t make out a word she was singing. The cheap PA distorted her voice into screeching, while Steve’s pounding bass drowned out the lead guitar completely. Much of the performance was of songs that would later go on The Scream. Full of frenetic, raucous, slightly un-rehearsed energy. We were hooked, and became obsessive fans. This was the debut album and unusual for its time. It had been a long time coming - they were shunned by record companies for some time. Sioux’s association with the Sex-Pistols and the silly, over hyped, Grundy incident had been a mixed blessing. Free publicity - but not all of it good. No other band had been so successful touring, recorded a Peel session, and released a top 10 single “Hong Kong Garden”. Yet not signed a recording contract. Finally Polydor went for it and released The Scream. The Scream still stands up as a classic album with a totally unique sound, from a band that would spend the next 25 years or so as outlaws to mainstream music. Though often labeled ‘punk’, they never really were. Only a few songs here maybe ‘Jigsaw Feeling’ and ‘Metal Postcard’ resemble the three chord machine gunned sounds of 1976/77. Sioux had already moved on. The song writing is on another level entirely to anything at the time. Dark themes, mixed with an odd and slightly sick humour. A housewife who loses it and cuts herself with a razor in frustration. A necrophiliac butcher who falls in love with the carcass he’s cutting up. A cover of a Beatles song with its bizarre connection to a murderous cult. Nobody sounded like the Banshees. No one else ever would. They transcended fads and fashions and survived. After 30 years I still want to play The Scream it still has an edge. I bought the recently released digitally remastered version of The Scream, and was disappointed. It’s a little too good. A little too well produced. This prompted me to buy an older Polydor CD. The sound is rougher, less polished, but you know what? - that’s how the Banshees were in 1978.Read full review