Album Review: Anarchytecture by Skunk Anansie

Remember when Skunk Anansie headlined Glastonbury? It’s been nearly 20 years, but it’s easy to forget that the agit-punk-funk-metal four piece (did they call themselves 'clit-rock'?) were once genuinely massive. Their three Nineties records, Paranoid and Sunburnt, Stoosh and Post Orgasmic Chill are worth digging out again- they show a wickedly energetic, riff-heavy and fucking livid RATM-esque metal band evolving through a series of genuinely classic-sounding singles (‘Weak’, ‘Twisted (Everyday Hurts’), ‘Hedonism’) while embracing drum n bass (‘Charlie Big Potato’) and proper ballads (‘Brazen (Weep)’. Since reforming in 2009 that progression has swerved away from the bleeding edge, as you’d expect from a band now two decades deep, instead consolidating into something solidly constructed and very self-assured.

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Skunk Anansie were an odd bunch, occupying a thoroughly rocking position in the mid-to-late 90s which owed much to American rock and metal, but still retaining a British feel. The recipe gained them tons of success, thanks in part to singer Deborah ‘Skin’ Dyer’s incredible vocal range, but they slipped from the spotlight over the course of the following decade as public attention focused elsewhere. This album, their third since a mildly acclaimed comeback in 2010, continues with the format that got them noticed with 90s hits such as Twisted (Everyday Hurts) and All I Want.

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Veteran Britrockers paint their sixth album in 50 shades of disco, metal and glam rock. In their 1990s prime, Skunk Anansie offered an exhilarating ‘clit rock’ alternative to the white boy-dominated ranks of Britrock. Two decades later, they remain a rare beacon among UK bands, a multiracial pop-metal quartet with a gay black female singer. ADVERTISINGinRead invented by Teads Of course, being different is no automatic measure of quality, and some of the band’s recent output has been decidedly pedestrian.

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