Siouxsie & The Banshees - The Scream

The Scream is the debut studio album by British post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, and few first records have landed with this much fully formed identity right out of the gate. Recorded in just one week and mixed over three during August 1978 with co-producer Steve Lillywhite, the album followed the commercial success of the band's breakthrough single "Hong Kong Garden," which had already reached number seven on the UK singles chart. Released on 13 November 1978 by Polydor, The Scream peaked at number 12 on the UK Albums Chart and was widely acclaimed by critics on arrival.

Guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris, both relatively new additions to the lineup at the time, gave the record its distinctive edge, McKay's jagged, angular guitar work paired with Morris's tribal, echo-drenched percussion, a sound Lillywhite achieved partly by recording the drums out of sequence, tracking bass and snare first before layering cymbals and toms on top. The result is dark, primal, and unlike almost anything else happening in British rock at the time, a record that helped define post-punk as its own distinct genre rather than a footnote to punk's initial explosion.

Formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bassist Steven Severin, the band would go on to release eleven studio albums across a career defined by constant lineup change around those two core members, and The Scream remains the foundational document of everything that followed, still regarded as a genuine landmark of post-punk.

This double 180-gram vinyl pressing is the way to hear where it all started.