Track Listing

1. Into a Swan
2. About To Happen
3. Here Comes That Day
4. Loveless
5. If It Doesn't Kill You
6. One Mile Below
7. Drone Zone
8. Sea Of Tranquility
9. They Follow You
10. Heaven And Alchemy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17697 in Music
• Released on: 2007-10-02
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
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

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

Siouxsie must have hired a team of PR kids to write all of these reviews
I hope she's paying you guys in Euro's or in Sterling! Seriously, though - I love Siouxsie's 80's stuff, it was brilliant, and she and her band really could not put out anything that wasn't a home run. Simple as that. Since then her clothes have gotten more expensive, her voice better trained and richer, but face it, the music is boring and indistinguishable from a hundred other bands. She should take up baking. And she still makes fun of Goths, legions of whom have paid for her villas in France - Remember, oh she of the flat chest - that without the minions in black you would be working in a laundromat.

Thrice Upon A Time
To keep it short; this is an amazing album.
If you liked the Banshees I see no reason why you wouldn't adore this release, she has not lost a step.
Truly an icon, and still on top of the game even if alot of people don't know or don't care anymore, this stuff is as viable as anything on the radio today.

It is amazing how she can still put out something in this day and age, and it is almost as obscure to the average listener as it would have been had it come out 20 years ago.

"GRACEFUL & STRONG"
Ok....I purchased this cd back in Octobre 2007 & I have been stuck on it since. I am just now getting around to a sending out a review.
First off, Siouxsie never left, she was just amusing Budgie for a little while longer.
This cd is totally 100% worth buying. Every track bursts with newness each time you listen to them. I could go down the list of tracks but that still would not justify them enough.
Just buy the damn cd & grow from it.
You won't regret it.