Skunk Anansie will not accept a future as a relic. Although their Glastonbury-conquering commercial peak was decades ago, and there’s been a further nine-year drought without an album, there’s nothing about their comeback that indicates they’ve become rusty.
In fact, after significant personal upheavals — including drummer Mark Richardson and bassist Cass being treated for cancer — they’re hardly lacking in things to say. What’s more, they’ve got the creativity to match on ‘The Painful Truth’.
But as raw as album seven might get, the sense of renewal that pours through the music demands to be felt.
It begins with the brassy An Artist Is An Artist, a joyful, buzzing burst of punk where vocalist Skin offers a witty rebuke to music industry ageism: “An artist don’t stop being an artist ‘cos she’s old, you know / She don’t roll up her sleeves, pick up her Zimmer frame and leave.”
Thanks to its proximity to the classic Skunk Anansie sound, it’s a means of using familiarity as an entry point. From there, the route is twistier and darker. The thrumming, leftfield synth-pop of This Is Not Your Life offsets the pulse-spiking thrill of Skin’s voice soaring in the chorus, while the pacy alt-rock of Cheers finds them grinning through the agony as they toast to “celebrate our big failure.”
A couple of uneventful ballads aside, ‘The Painful Truth’ is distinctive, exciting and brimming with quirks. Animal’s claustrophobic, repetitive refrain burns with a disarming intensity, Shoulda Been You’s backbone is built of an intriguing ska-like pep and Fell In Love With A Girl’s reverberating guitar line lends the song insatiable catchiness. There is an immediacy to it all, and within a couple of listens, many of these tracks become unforgettable.
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