Juju album cover
Juju

Siouxsie & the Banshees

1981
Polydor

At this point, Siouxsie and the fellas are not much concerned with their future or past—they are too busy throwing their elders down the stairs! John McGeoch and Siouxsie Sioux play matching triplanes here, zooming through the atmosphere with equal amounts of shine and lunacy. This is the band’s Revolver, the one that’s as catchy as it is convulsive. Juju is also one of the better examples of what a chorus pedal can do, as both the bass and guitar are going through one on most of the songs here. If Siouxsie and company were going after something that fit into the spectrum at the spooky/goth end, they were equally interested in a kind of celebration, and Juju is where they figure out how to throw that party.

Sasha Frere-Jones

With John McGeoch now firmly in the lineup on guitar, the creative outburst heralded by Kaleidoscope’s variety continued on Juju, as Siouxsie and the Banshees found themselves able to mix the darker undertow of the earliest years with a new pop-friendly deftness and variety, a perfect balance. The intense build of “Sin In My Heart” and the glowering power of “Night Shift,” one of Siouxsie’s sharpest performances as much as the band’s, demonstrated the latter, while the opening “Spellbound” was an enticing encapsulation of their approach as a near anthem.

Ned Raggett

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