Skunk Anansie have just released their first studio album in 9 years, ‘The Painful Truth.’ An album that manages to balance between a classic Skunk Anansie sound, with modern electronica all the while delivering us with a big dose of their signature anger. Taking influences from across genres, ‘The Painful Truth’ gives us ska, indie rock, punk and electronica, and manages to seamlessly merge them, so that there are no jarring unexpected jumps in feel between tracks. An example would be, album opener ‘An Artist Is An Artist, is raw, angry, sultry and almost spoken word track from Skin’s delivery of the lyrics. This moves into track two, ‘This Is Not Your Life’ which is much more polished and has an almost dance anthem feel to it. This transition could come across as odd, but in the hands of Skunk Anansie, a thread of angst flows through the tracks, tying them together, no matter the differences in presentation. And it works very well.
Lets deal with the elephant in the room. Skunk Anansie, is a band that had much success in the 1990s, and so its easy to draw comparisons to their big hits of their earlier career. But this is a pointless and unfair exercise. Skunk Anansie are a band who has continued to make good music over the last 30 years, sometimes taking long breaks as the band members each pursue other projects. Each time, they come back fresh and reinvigorated and ready to give us great new music. And so it is with ‘The Painful Truth,’ an album that is both introspective and heartfelt, while still carrying the rage and punk ‘f-you’ attitude that has been with them always. Skunk Anansie are a band who have continued to evolve and put out the music they want to make. For that, quite rightly, they offer no apologies.
The Painful truth’ is an album that rewards us over multiple listens. There are of course immediate tracks that draw our attention, such as the blistering ‘Animal’ which is as close to classic Skunk Anansie as you are going to get, while still feeling fresh and modern. But dig deeper and there are other gems to be found, such as the beautiful lyrics of quasi-ballad ‘Shame’ which contains the thought provoking lyrics “I got my love my mother, I got the pain from my dad.” There is so much to love about this album, but highlights for me include ‘An Artist Is An Artist,’ ‘Animal’ and album closer the reflective ‘Meltdown.’
‘The Painful Truth’ is an album confident in it’s own skin (excuse the pun) from a band who are not interested in looking back, and demand to be judged for what they are producing now. And that in itself makes this album a triumph.
4 stars
Chris \m/
