Join Hands

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Join Hands
File:Siouxsie & the Banshees-Join Hands.jpg
Studio album by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Released 7 September 1979
Recorded May-June 1979
Studio AIR studios, London
Genre Post-punk
Length 42:29
Label Polydor
Producer Nils Stevenson
Mike Stavrou
Siouxsie and the Banshees chronology
The Scream
(1978)The Scream1978		 Join Hands
(1979)		 Kaleidoscope
(1980)Kaleidoscope1980
Alternative cover
2015 vinyl reissue cover
2015 vinyl reissue cover
Singles from Join Hands
  1. "Playground Twist"
    Released: 28 July 1979

Join Hands is the second studio album by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, released in September 1979 by record label Polydor. Upon its release, it was hailed by the British press, including Melody Maker, Sounds, NME and Record Mirror. It was the last album with the band's first recorded lineup, as guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris quit the group after a disagreement at the beginning of the tour.

Join Hands took "the very un-rock'n'roll topic of World War I as its inspiration".[1] Musically, it is in a darker vein than their debut album The Scream.[2]

The record peaked at No. 13 on the UK Albums Chart. One single, "Playground Twist", was taken from the album.

History, content and music

File:Siouxsie and the banshees Join Hands with John McKay.jpg
Siouxsie and the Banshees at the Guards Memorial in London

When the album was written in 1979, there were new reports from Iran and what was going on there: repression and curfews. It was one of the first times that viewers saw people being shot and killed on television. In England, It was also a time of instability. In London, the rubbish was piling high in the streets. Siouxsie saw it as "a real time, everything in flocks and uncertain but also festering underneath, and because this stuff from the past that was just left there rotting there and it needed to be acknownledged and then cleaned up, not just swept away still rotting".[1]

The album's references to poppies represented the idea of "loss, of flesh and blood and hopelessness".[1] "Poppy Day", was based on John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields", which was written in 1915 after the loss of a friend during a battle in World War I. The poppy reproduced on the album cover is a symbol of Remembrance Day. On the inner sleeve, the mention "2 minutes of silence" was added next to "Poppy Day".[3] "Regal Zone" also covered the subject of war and was about the conflict in Iran. "Mother / Oh Mein Papa" is an interpretation of the German song "O mein Papa" with words by Siouxsie. Two voices sing simultaneous love and hatred for the same mother.[4] The closing track on the album is a studio recording of "The Lord's Prayer", the song that they were famous for playing at their debut live performance at the 100 Club Punk Festival in September 1976; it was recorded in one take. The group used other instruments on the album, such as saxophone and music box.

Join Hands was different from The Scream, "more experimental, less abrasive but still dark and jagged".[1] Commenting a few days before the album's release, Jon Savage wrote about the music: "The songs are delivered with the stifling intensity of inner violence in a locked room".[5] Kris Needs remarked that Join Hands was in retrospect, an ironic title for a record which split the group in two.[6]

Release

Join Hands was issued on 7 September 1979 by record label Polydor. It reached No. 13 in the UK Albums Chart.[7] Guitarist McKay and drummer Morris left the band two days after the album's release before a concert in Aberdeen.[8]

The album was reissued on vinyl in an alternative sleeve for Record Store Day in April 2015. This second sleeve was actually the very first artwork that John Maybury had presented to Polydor in 1979, but it had not been well received by the record company's executives, due to its religious nature. The tracklist included a previously unreleased song on vinyl, "Infantry".[9]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 2/5 stars[10]
Melody Maker very favourable[5]
NME (1979 review) very favourable[11]
Record Mirror favourable[12]
Sounds 4.5/5 stars[13]

The album was well received by reviewers. Sounds gave Join Hands a grade of 4.5 out of 5, with reviewer Pete Silverton noting a change in the sound: "The mix is different to the last album. Now there's a clarity which frames Sue's voice like it was a thing of treasure".[13] Silverton also wrote that some of the songs have "Siouxsie's voice double-tracked with devastating effect".[13] Melody Maker reviewer Jon Savage described the first track, "Poppy Day", as a "short, powerful evocation of the Great War graveyards in Flanders." He also wrote that "Placebo Effect" "has a stunning flanged guitar intro, chasing clinical lyrics covering some insertion or operation." About "Icon", Savage wrote: "The brilliantly reverbed guitar is a perfect foil for Siouxsie's soaring and, for once, emotional vocal."[5] Record Mirror reviewer Ronnie Gurr also hailed the record, saying: "Poppy Day establishes the band's perfect employ of atmospherics sets the tone of all the tracks". "Mother" was compared to the soundtrack of a Alfred Hitchcock film, with Gurr noting that the "track features a musical box, echoes menacing guitar grumblings and Siouxsie providing vocals that would befit any of Hitchcock's best matricides". Gurr concluded that Join Hands was a dangerous work that "should be heard".[12]

In a retrospective review published in 1989, NME wrote that Join Hands was "a more absorbing, haunting LP" than their debut album. Reviewer Steve Lamacq rated it 8 out of 10, though he said that the version of "The Lord's Prayer" was "out of place".[14] AllMusic considered "Icon" the best track on the album, commenting that it "survives an unpromising beginning to open out into a faster main section with fuller vocal sound and gutsier guitar work", but journalist David Cleary panned the rest of Join Hands, describing it as "almost uniformly grim, with dragging tempos, bleak lyrics, long and wandering free-form structures, static and often unfocused harmony and thick, colorless arrangements."[10]

Legacy

Join Hands is considered as a post-punk album by both music historian Clinton Heylin[15] and AllMusic.[10] Due to several of its songs, it is also seen as a precursor of the gothic rock genre by some critics, including Simon Reynolds.[16] Its "funereal" atmosphere "inspired a host of gothic impersonators", according to Mojo, but "none of whom matched the Banshees' run of singles".[17]

AllMusic commented that "some of [Join Hands'] selections appear to strongly anticipate the work of Joy Division's second album, Closer, especially 'Placebo Effect', whose guitar sound was a clear inspiration for that of the Manchester band's song 'Colony'."[10]

Join Hands later inspired other critically acclaimed musicians. LCD Soundsystem leader James Murphy expressed an appreciation of the album – the first records he bought were "Siouxsie and the Banshees' Join Hands, The Fall's Grotesque and The Birthday Party's "Nick the Stripper", all in one day. And all three of those records are three of my favourite things I've ever heard."[18] In late 2008, Morrissey chose the track "Mother" in his playlist when he was interviewed for BBC Radio 2.[19]

Film

In Control, a film relating the story of Joy Division's singer Ian Curtis, the sleeve of Join Hands is shown in a scene where the character of Curtis' wife, Deborah (who co-wrote the film), looks through her husband's record collection.[20]

Track listing

All lyrics written by Siouxsie Sioux, except as noted, all music composed by Siouxsie and the Banshees (Sioux, Steven Severin, John McKay, Kenny Morris), except as noted.

Side A
No. Title Lyrics Length
1. "Poppy Day"   John McCrae 2:04
2. "Regal Zone"   Severin 3:47
3. "Placebo Effect"     4:40
4. "Icon"   Severin 5:27
5. "Premature Burial"     5:58
Side B
No. Title Lyrics Music Length
1. "Playground Twist"       3:01
2. "Mother / Oh Mein Papa"   Sioux, Geoffrey Parsons, ("Oh Mein Papa") John Turner ("Oh Mein Papa") Siouxsie and the Banshees, Paul Burkhard ("Oh Mein Papa") 3:22
3. "The Lord's Prayer"   traditional, Sioux   14:09

Personnel

Siouxsie and the Banshees
Technical
  • Mike Stavrou – production, engineering
  • Nils Stevenson – production, engineering
  • Ian Morais – engineering assistance
  • Rob O'Connor – sleeve design
  • Adrian Boot – sleeve photography
  • John Maybury – sleeve illustration

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Kent, Nick and Needs, Kris. " Night of the Long Knives". NME. 22 September 1979.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Corbijn, Anton. "Control" [Excerpt - The "Love will tear us Apart" scene]. Momentum Pictures. YouTube. 2008.
Sources
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