Siouxsie - Mantaray
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CD Details
Artist: SiouxsieEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-10-02
Music Label: Decca
Product features:
- SIOUXSIE MANTARAY
- Into a Swan
- About To Happen
- Here Comes That Day
- Loveless
- If It Doesn't Kill You
- One Mile Below
- Drone Zone
- Sea Of Tranquility
- They Follow You
- Heaven And Alchemy
Music reviews of Mantaray
Music Review: Queen of Punk Reclaims Throne with Triumphant First Solo Album
Rating: 5 Stars
Behold the illustrious legend that is Siouxsie Sioux (formerly of Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Creatures). For a little Punk Rock 101, in 1976 Susan Ballion of Bromley, England launched a career spanning four decades (so far) and blazing the way for the likes of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, PJ Harvey, Shirley Manson of Garbage, and countless other disciples.
When you delve into the enchanted world of Siouxsie's psyche via this remarkable album -- and you definitely must - do not think to yourself "Oh, she's just mimicking so and so's style." Make no mistake about it; the artists you think you recognize in her music have adopted the signature style of the one and only Ice Queen of Punk; not the other way around.
Releasing a long anticipated first solo album is a monster of a feat, especially with the albatross of expectations hovering over the infamously coiffed head of this veteran glam punk icon. Fortunately, Madame Sioux came armed and ready for battle.
Without the structure of a band for the first time, Siouxsie got busy with producers Charlie Jones (Goldfrapp) and Steve Evans (Robert Plant), and together they wove a tapestry of textures that is pure magick.
Clearly, living in the French countryside has enriched the palate of the punk goddess. Her defiant freedom of style, newly reinvented and entirely unhampered by the dictates of the status quo, mingles jazz (a la Shirley Bassey) and classic cabaret with industrial glam punk and a steady dose of the relentless, grinding feedback, percussive mayhem, and slash and burn guitars that Siouxsie is famous for.
Sinister, sexy and flirtatious on the surface, this album seethes and roils with raw, unadulterated honesty and bare-naked emotion. Rising from the aftermath of her divorce from Banshees drummer and Creatures collaborator Budgie, and boasting fresh battle wounds and ancient scars gleaned from 50 years of hardcore living, Siouxsie bursts into her solo debut with a proclamation of rebirth in the hot track "Into a Swan."
One of my favorites is Track 2, a super-fun Gothic Pop ditty "About to Happen," reminiscent of early DEVO and everything great about 80's music - vintage Siouxsie and simply delish.
Siouxsie channels Marlene Dietrich and Madonna, teasing and taunting her way through tracks, slipping effortlessly into enchantress-mode in the sinfully vengeful romp "Here Comes That Day," and strutting unabashedly into "Loveless," a wicked torch song that lingers and haunts.
In a stunner of a climax, Siouxsie absolutely bludgeons with the soul-wrenching "If It Doesn't Kill You," a masterpiece that left me obliterated. Holy High Priestess of Punk!
Throbbing trance-like rhythms and escalating chants in "One Mile Below" elevate, while "Drone Zone," an avant-garde, poetic commentary on the mindless droning of daily life in modern consumerist society, provides a different kind of trance, which slides effortlessly into the dreamy landscape of "Sea of Tranquility."
In a final executing blow, brutally truthful lyrics like "you're in love with the idea of me" in "Heaven and Alchemy" lays down a devastating finale to this stunning conquest.
Siouxsie has slayed this beast and is poised for world domination. Long live the Queen!
Description of Mantaray
Decca Records is proud to announce the release of MANTARAY, the debut solo album from renowned British artist Siouxsie. Siouxsie's first solo recording without The Banshees or The Creatures will be released on October 2. MANTARAY, produced by Steve Evans (Robert Plant) and Charlie Jones is fresh and contemporary, while remaining immediately recognizable. Incorporating industrial rhythms, modern glam and other orgainic elements, Siouxsie's iconic vocals are showcased in a newly expansive sound across the whole album. Since her first appearance onstage in 1976 at the 100 Club Punk Festival, Siouxsie has been a pioneer. She captivated audiences with her dramatic, compelling presence that pushed, then broke, boundaries. Her continually evolving style--from chaotic, aggressive punk to sophisticated, glossy pop--resulted in an impressive canon of work that continues to remain provocative today.Siouxsie Photos
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There's never been anything understated in Siouxsie Sioux's approach, from her physically and vocally imperious demeanor to her taste for crushing grooves and slash-and-burn guitars. That's all in full display on her first official solo album, Mantaray. In lieu of the Banshees, Siouxsie teams up with Steve Evans and Charlie Jones. They not only produced the album, but co-wrote most of the tunes and play most of the bass, guitar, and keyboards. They understand Siouxsie's iconographic terrain and do little to deviate from it, but they also make it sound like an album made today and not in 1978. Lyrically, Siouxsie has shed her often macabre, gothic horrorshow imagery in favor of a more personal, if not more intimate vision. "The Swan" is a song of empowerment and change, backed by a grinding rhythm track and wall-of-sound interludes. She indulges her penchant for jazz, recalling New Orleans with the fudgie horn section of "Here Comes the Day," while "If It Doesn't Kill You" recalls her cover of "Strange Fruit," nodding to Billie Holiday as it hovers between ballad, Broadway, and heavy metal. "Loveless" may be her response to the demise of her marriage to Banshee and Creatures drummer Budgie. It's a brutalizing piece with electronic rhythms and searing, feedback guitar leads that are incongruously countered by a cyclical marimba line. Nearly thirty years after her debut with the Banshees, Siouxsie can still sneer and storm as fiercely as ever. Sometimes she overdoes the vocal mannerisms with the slightly flat tone, snarls, yelps, bends, and drawls that have become embedded in her style over the years. Even when she's singing a tender song, Siouxsie sounds like she might just slap you across the face. --John Diliberto
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