The Thorn EP, eprelease date: Oct. 19, 1984
format: digital (2004 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]
producer: Mike Hedges, Siouxsie and the Banshees
label: Polydor Records - nationality: England, UK
EP release by Siouxsie and the Banshees and the band's first release after Robert Smith left the band and therefore also the first album with John Valentine Carruthers as new guitarist. The EP contains four tracks, all of which have previously been issued. "Overground" is thus available in album version on the debut The Scream (1978), "Voices (On the Air)" has previously only been released as the B-side "Voices" to the band's first single "Hong Kong Garden" (Aug. '78), "Placebo Effect" may be found on the band's second album Join Hands (1979), and "Red Over White" was B-side to the single "Israel" (Nov. '80). All tracks here have been recorded in new 'symphonic' arrangements with the band attempting to incorporate strings in its soundscape - something they would refine on the band's following album Tinderbox (1986).
The Thorn EP is quite an interesting outing, which clearly shows the band's search for a new sound. SATB had always been and practically were challenged throughout the band's long career in holding on to guitarists. The band had already displayed several great guitarists, and this was another characteristic that followed the band from start to finish. Either the guitarists chose to leave themselves, or they were dismissed, but none of the band's many excellent guitarists featured on no more than three studio albums in succession. The band's sound depends heavily on a distinctive guitar sound, and with Robert Smith in the band that sound was naturally different from when John McGeoch played beforehand, and with Carruthers it's again necessary to saddle up - and in this way The Thorn Ep nicely documents a search for cultivating the band's sound and to incorporate their new guitarist into a natural process, which finds a more rooted sound on the following album.
The EP is not in itself a masterful outing but is exciting as something diverse in between big albums, where the band proves to bridge from energetic post-punk towards more sophisticated art pop.
The Thorn EP was originally only released on vinyl - later came an independent digital issue, but the EP is also available as a separate CD on the compilation album Downside Up (2004).
