Juju
release date: Jun. 6, 1981
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,12]
producer: Nigel Gray & Siouxsie and the Banshees
label: Polydor Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Spellbound" (4 / 5) - 2. "Into the Light" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Arabian Knights" - 4. "Halloween" - 5. "Monitor" (4 / 5) - 6. "Night Shift" - 7. "Sin in My Heart" (4 / 5) - 9. "Voodoo Dolly" - *10. "Spellbound" (12'' Mix) - *12. "Fireworks" (Nigel Gray Version)
*Bonus track on 2006 remaster
4th studio album by Siouxsie and the Banshees following ten months after Kaleidoscope (1980) is the second album featuring Sioxsie Sioux, Steve Severin, John McGeoch and Budgie, and it's one of the very first albums I listened to with this band.
The sound and style has refined from the first albums and taken the first moves of experimental nature from the predecessor to a new stage of post-punk. Sioxsie and the Banshees was one of the first bands to be associated with the style of gothic rock, which had its origin in the post-punk and art rock scene of the late 1970s. The sound always was their trademark, and they truly sounded like no one else at a time when many artists experimented with new styles of post-punk, and The Banshees perhaps even played post-punk and gothic rock already from their debut album The Scream in 1978, at a time when the style hadn't been named yet.
The hypnotic voice of Siouxsie Sioux of course attracted attention but it rather was the combination of instruments and the production sound that first appealed to me. Steve Severin plays the bass with "new" chords often using a fretless bass to make his unique sound, John McGeoch has a distinct guitar-razorblade-like-sound, and Budgie... well, he is the backbone of the band, and a very fine and skilled drummer, who lays the foundation to build on.
Saleswise, the album fared rather well peaking as number #7 on the UK albums chart list, thus being the second and last album by the band to make a top-10 entry, and two songs were chosen for single releases: "Spellbound" and "Arabian Knights" peaking as number #22 and #33 on the UK singles list, respectively.
Although, it may not be my all-time-favourite by the band, it is indeed one of the most intriguing releases in a very fine year, and it's also enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". The album truly showcases McGeoch's swirling guitar sound and it's also a release with no real fillers.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, Sounds 4,5 / 5 stars ]
