Siouxsie And The Banshees - Cities In Dust (Wonderland/Polydor)

Looks like Sioux has spent her absence from the music scene on her hols in Greece - judging by the rather tasteless picture of an ancient couple bonking on the record. Our travel correspondent says that this is the sort of thing you get on beer mats in dodgy tavernas out there along with lecherous waiters. The song itself has an unusually catchy, funky feel, but the usual lyrical concerns of the Banshees are present and correct - y' know, dirt, dust, decay, death, that kind of thing. Well, they couldn't write about beaches and suntans now could they? (Karen Swayne, No 1, October 19, 1985)

The Banshees have returned from a sojourn in Italy inspired, apparently, by Pompeii (ancient city preserved forever by a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago). The song moves in early Simple Minds territories and, surprisingly enough, the Jim Kerr-type vocal inflections work well. Anyway, I love Siouxsie Sue. (Paul King, Smash Hits, October 23, 1985)

Still possessed of the finest sorceress caterwaul in the business, Siouxsie briefly gloats and croaks over the demise of a civilisation as her fellow statues stir up a scattering of underground sound effects. Meanwhile, the rest of the world wonders where the dip and drive of "Dazzle" has been buried, and waits for the next earthquake. A private record, to be bought for old times' sake, for the lupine massacre of sound on the B-side, and for the sake of a little sanity amid the surrounding musical insipidness. (Roger Morton, Record Mirror, October 19, 1985)