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Siouxsie & The Banshees Reissue The Final Three Studio Albums Today
By: BWW News Desk Oct. 28, 2014
Siouxsie & The Banshees reissue their last three studio albums, all as remastered packages with bonus tracks. Peepshow, Superstition and The Rapture will be released today, October 28, 2014, on Geffen/Universal Music Enterprises (UMe). These releases cover a period of the band during a time of bold experimentation and musical exploration coinciding with The Banshees getting the notice they truly deserved in the U.S.A., while retaining the feverish devotion of their fans at home.
Peepshow marked both The Banshees' first album as a quintet and the moment where they created their most certifiably diverse long-player to date - together it amounted to nothing less than the shock of invincibility. The album was both a critical and a commercial success in the U.S. and U.K. and when the first single, the totally unpigeonholable "Peek-A-Boo," appeared in July 1988 it was met with near universal acclaim.
Track Listing:
Peek-A-Boo / The Killing Jar / Scarecrow / Carousel / Burn-Up / Ornaments Of Gold / Turn To Stone / Rawhead & Bloodybones / The Last Beat Of My Heart / Rhapsody
Bonus Tracks:
El Dia De Los Muertos (Espiritu Mix - reissued here for the first time in over 25 years) / The Killing Jar (Lepidopteristic Mix - reissued here for the first time in over 25 years) / The Last Beat Of My Heart (Live @ Lollapalooza, 1991)
For their tenth album, they surprised everyone by recruiting Stephen Hague as producer. Hague, best known for his work with O.M.D. and Pet Shop Boys, was the unlikeliest of choices to collaborate with a group known for imbuing their rhythms and melodies with edgy disorder. The result was an enthralling collection of songs that saw The Banshees play with new textures and reinvent themselves all over again. This towering album sounded and still sounds like their greatest leap forward.
Superstition once again underlined that Siouxsie & The Banshees were spinning in a world of their own making, a seismic jolt in the void, a group to treasure. "Kiss Them For Me" is classic Banshees, unearthing its ripe sensuality in the darkest of terrains. When released as a single in May 1991, opinion was sharply divided between pure devotion and utter confusion. When unveiled at that year's Lollapalooza travelling festival, "Kiss Them For Me" caught the moment perfectly and went on to become their biggest U.S. hit single to date. The following year, Tim Burton personally requested a Banshees song for his film "Batman Returns." The resulting classic "Face To Face" is included here as a bonus track.
Track Listing:
Kiss Them For Me / Fear (Of The Unknown) / Cry / Drifter / Little Sister / Shadowtime / Silly Thing / Got To Get Up / Silver Waterfalls / Softly / The Ghost In You
Bonus Tracks:
Face To Face (7" version) / Kiss Them For Me (Snapper Mix) / Kiss Them For Me (Kathak #1 Mix - never before released)
Of all The Banshees' albums, their final The Rapture is their most wildly schizophrenic and arguably their most ambitious. Velvet Underground alumnus and art rock pioneer John Cale produced half of the album, while the band took control of the rest. The bonus tracks feature a previously unreleased track called "FGM," plus the hitherto unavailable, full length version of "New Skin," recorded for the "Showgirls" soundtrack.
Throughout the album, The Banshees were a group at their most creatively fecund, still delighting in their placelessness, venturing into the only area where they ever felt safe: the realm of unreason. Even as they were unknowingly winding down the curtain, they were tantalizingly hinting at entirely new pastures, uncharted amusement parks of the mind.
The Rapture proved to be their swan song yet remains a dramatic transformation, ensuring that they finished on a dizzying high.
From The Scream to The Rapture in 20 expansive, adventurous years. Not bad going for a group who only formed for a night.
Track Listing:
O Baby / Tearing Apart / Stargazer / Fall From Grace / Not Forgotten / Sick Child / The Lonely One / Falling Down / Forever / The Rapture / The Double Life / Love Out Me
Bonus Tracks:
O Baby (Manhattan Mix) / FGM (unreleased demo) / New Skin (unreleased complete version commissioned by Paul Verhoeven for his cult campfest "Showgirls")
Siouxsie & The Banshees
Siouxsie & The Banshees was formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. Though initially associated with the so-called Punk movement, the band rapidly evolved to create a form of "post punk discord full of daring rhythmic and sonic experimentation." Among the many plaudits the band received over the years, Siouxsie & The Banshees have been described as "one of the most audacious and uncompromising musical adventurers of the post-punk era."
Siouxsie & The Banshees went on to record 12 studio albums and a string of Top 20 hits over 17 years.
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