Prior to the magical singles double of the psychedelic 'Christine' and the awesome 'Israel', I hadn't been a particular fan of the Banshees, finding their brand of power - driven gloom somewhat less than palatable.  That brace of gems alerted my ideas about them, however, and I approached this record with a good deal of curiosity.  I was looking for a lighter touch than they'd shown on their previous LPs; my hopes were partly fulfilled but partly disappointed.

Side one begins with 'Spellbound', which has improved with further listening but still sounds, as it first did, rather like a poor cousin of 'Israel'.  Still, this is the Banshees sound that I find most appealing; drums at the steady gallop, acoustic guitars and a few catchy phrases.

'Into The Light' gets bogged down in its nagging, repetitive rhythm.  I hate to labour the point, but a lighter, defter touch would have redeemed it.  It could have been insistent, but it becomes simply boring.  'Arabian Knights' and 'Halloween' are more successful - although both suffer from lyrics which descend into the realms of fifth-form poetry.

'Monitor' is the side's most successful track; on it an intriguing set of lyrics combine with John McGeoch's guitar work (excellent throughout) to create a genuinely menacing effect.

Side two, however, degenerates into the sort of stuff you either adore the Banshees for or find nigh - on unlistenable.  Siouxsie's unvarying wail reduces even the best musical moments provided by her undeniably talented cohorts to a painful dirge.

The closing song is 'Voodoo Dolly', obviously intended as the Big Number.  Yet again, the music is effective, although goodness knows it should be, since they never seem to stray from the sinister in their choice of subject matter.  What about joy, passion, tenderness?  This obsession with the dark begins to seem immature, like a schoolgirl's fascination with the occult.  And however well executed the music, the voice drags it down to one dimension.  There's a stylised sort of emotion in that voice, but no humanity.

Closing comment?  "A must for Siouxsie fans,"  I suppose.  

3½ out of 5  

Best Tracks: Spellbound, Monitor, Halloween

Most Gothic Moment: The chilling graveyard intro into Night Shift ("I see you in darkness, I feel you")

Of course I watched Top Of The Pops last week.  It was poor, it's going in four week cycles at the moment, the good, the bad, the sagging, the so so, but Siouxsie & The Banshees were on.  A savage gloss, a slashing glamour amidst the tepid turns, a turn on like few others.  The Banshees are a terrific vision, an exclusive attraction, a peak in entertainment, Siouxsie & The Banshees, the toy display of hair, skirt, boys, vanity, flash, thigh, smile, cheek to cheek, back to back, are a discerning and devious distortion of the Pop Group that can be traced back to The Velvet Underground, Hendrix, The Doors and the dark side of Bolan; never wise or mellow, meek or smutty, sweet or "significant".  None of this romantic desire for action.  There is nothing earthy about Banshee music, and nothing gives.  Their fourth LP, this far, their second best?, is a gliding, comfortless delivery of self-distrust, infatuation and fetishism.  "Juju" has an infernal quality: nothing majestic or mysterious but a kind of unawed unworldliness.  The mistake is to imagine that Banshee words and images are intended to be profound and responsible, or brutally corrective.  "Juju" songs don't deal with dull matters, but with peculiar things in a taut and teasing manner.  The words are not as imposing as people imagine, or expect.  Precise syllables and broken rhythms are used to dramatise the music.  The mastermood of a Banshee song is disapproval: not a great intensity but an idealistic, vexed profanity.  A Banshee pop song is a bitter twist, a grave grace, more than is the general bargain.

The diabolical themes the emotional poignancy and remoteness are part of the whole.  It's not all a weeping over lost pleasures, neither is it a thanksgiving.  Banshee words are an effective way to reject the prosaic, to avoid the vulgar and the grouping of the words, the melodramatic and choric undercurrents enable the glorious Sioux to camp and exult with priceless poise.

Side one's highlights - 'Spellbound', 'Into The Light', 'Arabian Knights', 'Halloween' and 'Monitor'.  The most consistent side since 'The Scream'.  Side two's highlights - 'Night Shift', 'Sin In My Heart', 'Head Cut' and 'Voodoo Dolly'.  'Juju' is the first integrated and sparkling-complete Banshees since 'The Scream'.  'Electric Warrior' to the 'Tanx' of Toyah's 'Anthem'.  

Paul Morley

The question is - what kind of line?  I always imagine Siouxsie doing line after line of crushed ice.  Keep it polar.  Arguably the coldest music in the top twenty.  Ice maiden yeah.

It is difficult not to be drawn into an over-personal response - "Hong Kong Garden" was a single I liked greatly... but everything else was like a late '60s toothpaste trip.  The forcefield of ring-of-confidence from the frosted toothpaste preserved in a block of ice...

The forcefield was the chill, and the hoh-oh halting teuton Baden-Powell campfire black tights and gymslip come-one-girls-rise-and-shine vocals which in another weird twist often reminded of Maddy Prior...

Christ, between the highway boy looks and the lefthanded glare and the metallity of the music, it all seems so dreadfully serious... but never cathartic.  I have a horrible suspicion that as a general rule Siouxsie's horrors are largely Brontean.  The frame of reference has far more in common with Kate Bush than many would immediately admit.

"Juju" contains songs of fascination.  Right from the opener "Spellbound" - "Following the footsteps/Of a rag doll dance/We are entranced/Spellbound".

Her phrasing, almost American as the song opens, goes to the opposite extreme - entrawnced.

"Halloween", "Night Shift", "Sin In My Heart", "Head Cut" and "Voodoo Dolly" all continue the fascination with terror, and curiously antiquarian terror at that - psychosis and voodoo.  Doctor Caligari.

But perhaps it's easy to misunderstand.  Some people undoubtedly dance to the Banshees, and there is certainly something rivetting about Siouxsie's singlemindedly lefthanded way of banging her microphone and hup-two-three dancing.  (though the cynical might suggest that was simply a habit picked up while trying to keep the original Banshees in time.)  But they are no dance band, and fun and all it implies are out the window with the first frosts of autumn...

(Which is another way of saying the best time to hear this album is late at night, or better still on a snowy morning on the moors after a night of bad dreams and vulgar drink...)

At the same time Siouxsie does touch a core of fascinated horror, "Night Shift", for example, taken at a slower pace than most of the other jump-alongs, a more dynamically suggestive pace, deals out image after image of marbled gore and the strange contradiction of horror and fascination... (The crowds outside the Ripper trial, for example.)

"Head Cut" is another.  A mixture of images of sculpture/woodcut and murder.

For stuff like that this album is worth hearing.  It's just a pity it doesn't achieve that standard more often.  I mean "Arabian Knights" is pure Barbara Cartland-type fascination. "Myriad lights/they said I'd be impressed/Arabian Knights/at your primitive best".  OOOOOF.  

Dermot Stokes