Siouxsie & the Banshees: The Scream [POLYDOR]

Why you'll love it

This reissue was half-speed mastered and cut at Abbey Road Studios onto 180g vinyl, with a lyric inner sleeve. The album reached No. 12 in the UK, and Sounds named it the best debut album of the year.

This edition

• Half-speed mastered at Abbey Road Studios
• 180g vinyl
• Printed inner sleeve with lyrics
• Remastered
• Download card included
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Plenty of bands spend years polishing a debut. In August 1978 Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, John McKay and Kenny Morris walked into RAK Studios in London with producer Steve Lillywhite and cut theirs in a single week, then spent three more mixing it.

McKay's guitar slices and drones over Morris's tom-heavy pounding, and Siouxsie sings over the top like she's directing traffic. "Jigsaw Feeling" and "Overground" are cold and gripping, "Metal Postcard (Mittageissen)" stomps, "Switch" builds to a long, dramatic finish, and their snarling take on The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" sounds a world away from Abbey Road. The band wrote everything else themselves and co-produced with Lillywhite.

Peter Hook of Joy Division called it one of his favourite records ever, and Robert Smith reckoned it was the forerunner of the Joy Division sound, and NME put it at No. 58 in its writers' all-time top 100 in 1985. Quite the reference from two people who are, between them, responsible for an awful lot of black eyeliner.

Also at Kops: more Siouxsie and the Banshees on vinyl · browse Industrial & Goth

Tracklist

Listen

On Polydor (cat# SATBLP01), a reissue of the 1978 album.