Anima Animus

With Siouxsie ... The Banshees having gone gently into that Good Night, The Creatures is now a permanent set-up, rather than just a side-project for Ms. Sioux and Budgie to indulge the wayward side of their muse.

The trademark spindly guitar of the Banshees makes way for Budgie's multi-layered percussion which sets the scene for some chilling atmospherics, as Siouxsie's "suicide hoover drone" and koto-zithers wail ominously in the background. The shadowplay between the doom-laden drums and Siouxsie's portentous vocals is what gives The Creatures their edge and the overall feeling after listening to the album straight through is of a band who've managed to create their own universe.

The single '2nd Floor' opens proceedings with its gyrating synth line which is all but a sample of Joy Division's 'Isolation' - a genius steal - and a lyric that seems like a sketch for an episode of The Twilight Zone or The X-Files. 'Take Mine' is more representative, with Budgie's military tattoo beating the retreat, as Siouxsie unfolds yet another fragmented psychodrama.

The best of the lot is probably 'I Was Me', a Gothic nightmare in which Siouxsie is usurped by her doppelganger as in a Dostoyevsky novel. But 'Exterminating Angel' overdoes it a bit. A harrowing post-apocalyptic scenario is described with unsavoury relish: "Oh those strange Argonauts . . ./Plunge them onto Ingots/Ripping through your menstrual stream." Oh, mutha!

With Anima Animus, The Creatures have made the album that major labels wouldn't allow them to make. It's all a bit too wilfully oblique to make any meaningful impact but at least The Creatures are doing things on their own terms. Great news for Siouxsie fans; but I suspect only a curiosity to everyone else.