The Daily Telegraph (2.13.99)

By Richard Wolfson

The Creatures

Anima Animus (Sioux Records)

THE Creatures are Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie, the singer and drummer from the extinct Siouxsie and the Banshees. Their new CD returns to pastures others have forsaken, featuring swathes of tribal pop drumming, and reverb machines set to number 11.

It's an undeniably good album, though, with Siouxsie in fine voice and Budgie weaving brutal patterns around techno synths and ambient noise. The emotional epicentre is Exterminating Angel, where there are "just black holes where the stars should have been" and driving harmonies draw us into a chilling evocation of Armageddon.

Sadly missing from the picture is John McGeogh's chiming electric guitar, which crowned such Banshees classics as Hong Kong Garden.

But Anima Animus sounds as fresh as anything else around at the moment, and is proof that old hands can still come up with the goods. What's more, if Siouxsie ever gets tired of high Gothic, she has the range to follow Marianne Faithfull into Brechtian cabaret.

Contributed by Jerry Burch.