So Cybronica, I have gone through Banshee half a dozen times now. I think it's pretty cool, and when listening I found my imagination starting to go hog wild on it, which is a good sign in my book. I don't think it reaches nearly its potential, which is high.
Right away, the verse hook that comes down from that high E is nice and catchy, and your vocal register is exciting up there. So that's half the battle. This song could almost have been eligible for Round 4 as it sits on Em and C most of the time. I think there's a ton of opportunity to explore some more harmonic ideas, because you are repeating that same tune a lot, on the same two chords. It's not terrible, but it feels like you are chopping an potentially exciting song off at the knees. It's already pretty exciting, so that's pretty cool. But, as you will read, this song could completely work with just those chords if other things were happening.
Btw I don't really have any comments about the lyrics, and I think that's because the music kept my attention and I kept getting distracted. From what I did pay attention to, they seemed fine. I don't think this song is about the lyrics though, so if you do, and are non-plussed that I'm going to only talk music, then that's a problem right there, because I just couldn't focus on them for whatever reason
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If I were producing this song, this is what I might suggest:
Take all the reverb off the piano. At least once the rest of the band is playing. It sounds cool at the beginning, but it just muddies up the mix once everything else is going on. The combination of the muddy piano and the humming background singers makes for this sort of gray wash. Keep the vocals in there and let the piano do what it's good at in a mix - adding rhythmic interest.
I think once you did that, you might come to realize that a lot of rhythmic possibility is being left on the table, because the piano is just playing straight 8ths the whole time, and the drums aren't playing off that rhythm either, so this dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut effect will suddenly be noticeable. Here's where you can perk up instrumental interest though, by starting to change up the piano and/or drums, like throwing in something unexpected, a little syncopation, stuff like that. A little dusting of rhythm guitar might be appropriate too, though you'd have to try it out at the time, maybe not.
So like I said, your high register is exciting - it has a lot of power. (Ironically, the song is lyrically sort of about that power.) I would maybe suggest you try saving anything up in that register until the chorus. As it is, when you sing that you scream like a banshee, you really are singing the exact same thing you've been singing all along, just a little more intensely. So it's not as big a moment as it might be. If the verse started down lower and slowly made it's way up, then you only sing that high E in the chorus, it will have a lot more punch, and the G and beyond you manage to zap so well would be even better. (Another trick if you don't want to do that would be changing keys for the chorus, but that seems more expensive in terms of rewriting the thing.) I could hear this being one of those songs that starts out super quiet, just you at an intense bare whisper and maybe just the bass, and gradually builds to this huge sound by the end.
The other thing I thought was that the bass isn't doing anything very interesting, and is usually this really clean tone. There are moments I hear it do a little more in the second verse around 115-130, but I think that can go a lot farther, you could get dirtier with it.
I love that banshee wail effect! Works great for me. And that spooky bridge with the toms, very neat. It can also be dirtier.
I am reminded of the PJ Harvey album "Is This Desire?". An old fave of mine. I keep hearing this song as being another track on that album.
Thanks for asking! I love doing this. I'm totally hearing my imaginary uninvited version of the song in my head now.
