Hyeana [Import, Original recording remastered]

Siouxsie & The Banshees | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 19, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Ume Imports
• ASIN: B001OY5X3A
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,065 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The transitional album between past and future - poor quality remaster, July 14, 2010

By 

S. Davies - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hyeana (Audio CD)

Hyaena is another hit and miss album with fans. Some love it, some hate it. It took me years to truly appreciate the album entirely, and now rank it among the Banshees' best.

Hyaena was the transition from the "cool" Banshees of old to the more mature and beautiful work that would define their later period albums. You still get exciting aggressive songs, 'We Hunger' and 'Blow The House Down', but Siouxsie displays some amazingly beautiful vocal performances on the stunning singles from the album, 'Swimming Horses' and 'Dazzle'. While 'Swimming Horses' is a mellow masterpiece that makes the hair stand on my neck, 'Dazzle' begins with a lush string arrangement before bursting into a smoothly aggressive powerhouse. Both singles enjoyed some success when released, though if any Banshees singles should have been #1, these would be them.

Elsewhere on Hyaena, you get a further cross section of both worlds. 'Take Me Back' is another very attractive slower number, though 'Belladonna' remains the only poor song on the album. 'Running Town', 'Pointing Bone' and 'Bring Me the Head of the Preacher Man' may not be immediately captivating, but repeated listenings show the quality therein.

The bonus tracks stink. I've never cared for 'Dear Prudence' at all. Having always felt The Beatles are WAY overrated, even the Banshees cannot redeem their music for me.
The 'Baby Piano' bits are bland filler, and one of them even sounds as if the tape is slowly dying during the transfer.
And though the 'Dazzle (Glamour Mix)' is an interesting alternate mix, it is on the double Best Of CD, so it offers nothing new here.

The remastering on this CD is AWFUL! It's very loud and compressed, and I cannot hear a hint of enhancement or improvement over my previous CD. When viewed in an audio program's spectral view, you can see that the overblown volume has resulted in little distortion spikes throughout all tracks. There wasn't a single redeeming thing about this CD so I sold it on eBay and kept my original U.S. Geffen CD, which is far superior. Note to average listener: Louder does NOT translate to better. The 5 star album only gets 3 because of the shoddy remastering.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE 1ST BANSHEES ALBUM I HEARD IN 1984, AND I HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME SINCE., June 21, 2009

By 

Anthony G. "Classic Rock Fan" (New York City) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hyeana (Audio CD)

This was the one that I heard in the Summer of 1984, long before I was even a pre-teen (thanks to an older sibling), that introduced me to a band, a music, a poetry, and a voice that still seems unusual, exotic, and ethereal. "The Siouxsie Beautiful Movement" had already taken place w/ 1980's forever classic, KALEIDOSCOPE and got on in earnest w/ A KISS IN THE DREAMHOUSE, but it was w/ HYAENA that Siouxsie and the Banshees fully realized their Punk/Post-Punk/Classic-Contemporary mix w/ orchestral strings, Folky, Eastern sounds, ferocious guitars (Courtesy of long-time, but never truly committed, guitarist Robert Smith of The Cure), the constant, angry/melancholy bass of Severin, and the drum god that is Peter "Budgie" Clarke...and, best for last, a 27 year old Susan Janet "Siouxsie Sioux" Ballion singing like a delicate siren, a spirit warning of danger, a black witch revelling in a dark forest, and an angry living ghost, raving of past sins and future devastations.

The highlights of the album are the entire 10 songs... however, "Dazzle" was the song that got critics to finally accept that Siouxsie had a beautiful, formidable vocal range that could fit different kinds of music and material. "Take Me Back" (true story: I was asleep when I 1st heard it, so I had this simple, yet beautiful dream of colors and images that I still can't clearly remember, but still seems beautiful to this day...close your eyes when you hear that song and you'll have an idea of what it was like) was the 1st song that I ever heard from the band, and it still remains one of my favorites -- it, like the whole rest of the album, showcases how choir-like and operatic Siouxsie's voice sounded when textured in overdubs and overlapping octaves she created on her own. "Dear Prudence" may be her best recorded vocal in her 32 years of recording, and, to me, is better than the Beatles' original...even rock critics and MCcartney praised this cover. When I was 10 years old, I said, "'Swimming Horses' is one of the saddest, most beautiful songs I've ever heard." "Dreams", by Fleetwood Mac, is its equally-sad, beautiful sister. Play those two songs back-to-back, and they make good companion-pieces. The album lyrics are like reading a book of short stories on varying subjects, but with a dark bent. The production is expansive, thrashing, and otherworldly.

The remastering by Kevin Metcalfe is excellent. The liner notes by Paul Morley, as always, are very informative and good reading in itself. The "Extras" are bare minimum: But it is nice to hear Siouxsie and Mr. Smith laughing as they both work out Siouxsie's little piano melody that later becomes the opening for "Dazzle". If you're new to the Banshees and their dark Ice Queen leader, this is a great place to start, because you get to hear the full expression of what their original artistic desires were.

P.S. The cover art of this album is an iconic image from my childhood. I'd never seen art like that on an album before. One of their best.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Between good & excellent, April 24, 2009

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Hyaena (MP3 Download)

This reissue has been enhanced by three extra tracks. Although not generally considered to be amongst this seminal punk band's top 5 albums, Hyaena contains at least four magical moments. As such, it is not a bad album at all and in fact I like it more now than when it was released in the middle 1980s.

The first is the swirling Dazzle, a soaring melodic rock ballad that all by itself makes the album worthwhile. Swimming Horses is another classic of post punk-psychedelic rock, quite an atmospheric number. Then there's their cover of The Beatles' Dear Prudence, where the arrangement and Siouxsie's voice turn a love song into an eerie 'noire' affair.

We Hunger has a bubbling, jerky rhythmic backdrop whilst Take Me Back is a sparse, mid-tempo ballad. Belladonna is another of my favorites and the 4th masterpiece of the album with a beautiful melody. Bring Me The Head Of The Preacher Man is a long brooding piece of dense instrumentation and claustrophobic airs whilst Running Town has some interesting tempo changes and striking guitar playing.

Hyaena has stood the test of time very well but the three added tracks don't really add much to the magic. The aforementioned great songs, especially Dazzle, Belladonna and Swimming Horses, rank amongst this legendary group's best songs. My other recommended albums by Siouxsie & The Banshees are Peepshow, Join Hands, The Rapture and Superstition.