Tinderbox by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Tinderbox, Siouxsie and the Banshees' seventh studio album, came out on 21 April 1986 on Wonderland and Polydor in Britain and Geffen in the US, and it's a lean, shimmering and dark record, all glinting guitars and shadows. It was the band's first full album with guitarist John Valentine Carruthers, who had only added a few parts to The Thorn EP in 1984, and the first sessions took place in May 1985 at Hansa by the Wall in Berlin.

Carruthers' guitar swirls and slashes around Siouxsie Sioux's commanding voice, Steven Severin's bass prowls underneath, and Budgie's drums roll and tumble with a tribal urgency. "Cities in Dust" is the heart of it, a whirling, danceable tempest that sounds like a storm sweeping in, glittering and ominous at once. "This Unrest" sinks into a brooding smolder that coils and waits.

"Cities in Dust" and "Candyman" were the singles, issued from late 1985 into the start of 1986, and the album reached number 13 in the UK and number 88 on the Billboard 200. Its long shadow shows up in the artists who have named it as an inspiration, among them Billy Howerdel of A Perfect Circle, Jean-Benoît Dunckel of Air and Rachel Goswell of Slowdive.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.