Felix NEill

As a few of you will know, I recently bought a stack of Eighties vinyl from a man in Peterborough. Most of it, it has to be said, is fucking awful and will either go the way of eBay or the local Cancer Research shop. However, I reckon about 20% of the haul was good shit. Amongst the morass was a double album copy of the second Siouxsie And The Banshees greatest hits compilation, "Twice Upon A Time".

I was struck once again by the wonderful energy and individuality of this seminal punk/post punk band and was sent hunting for this lost peach among the vaults. Freshly ripped this afternoon, this is sounding truly great. Always a force of nature, Siouxsie here lets fly. Given the room to breathe, her voice undoubtedly takes centre stage, but then again, it usually does in a full band setting anyway. No wonder there have been so many imitators across the intervening years. And of course, it goes without saying that Budgie was one of the premier percussionists plying his trade professionally at that time.

More context and background adapted from the Wikipedia entry:

The Creatures were a musical act formed in 1981 as a side-project for Siouxsie and the Banshees members Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie. The Times described their music as "adventurous art rock built around Siouxsie's extraordinary voice and drummer Budgie's battery of percussion". In 1983, The Creatures released their first full length album Feast. The band decided where to record the album by randomly placing a pin on a map of the world. The result was Hawaii, which led to the featuring of The Lamalani Hula Academy Hawaiian Chanters on some tracks. In the week of its release, the band was on the front cover of both the Melody Maker and the NME. The Melody Maker described Feast as "an album of filtered brilliance, fertile, sensual and erotic" and the NME accentuated "The humours of Sioux's frosty larynx are nakedly outlined against skins of sometimes fabulous quality". The album reached number 17 in the UK Albums Chart. The hit single "Miss the Girl" took its inspiration from the book Crash by J. G. Ballard.