Skunk Anansie - The Painful Truth (2025)

London's Skunk Anansie plays what their lead singer Skin calls clit-rock – an amalgam of heavy metal, alternative rock, punk, and Black feminist rage. Known for their socio-politically charged lyrics and brash, hard rock sound which made them outliers in the '90s Brit-pop scene, the band released the platinum-selling studio albums Paranoid & Sunburnt, Stoosh, and Post Orgasmic Chill, before disbanding in 2001. Skunk Anansie re-formed in 2009 and released the hard-hitting Wonderlustre in 2010, followed by a series of acclaimed albums, including Anarchytecture (2016) and The Painful Truth (2025), that honed their genre-bending sound and combative punk aesthetic to a fine point.

After considering the offer for over a year, Skin began singing in high school for a classmate's band. Six years after that band broke up, the members of Skunk Anansie (including bass player Cass, guitarist Ace, and drummer Robbie France, who was replaced by Mark Richardson in 1995, met by chance. Their name was taken from the West Indian folktales of Anansi the Spider-Man, with a slight change of spelling and "Skunk" added to make the name nastier.

The group played its first gig at London's Splash club in March 1994, subsequently taking six weeks to record its debut album, Paranoid and Sunburnt, at a "haunted house" outside the city. The LP peaked at number eight on the U.K. Albums Chart, and the single, "Selling Jesus," was featured on the soundtrack of the film Strange Days. Stoosh followed in 1996, reaching the upper echelons of multiple European charts on the strength of the brazen hit single "Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)." Three years later, they unveiled their third long-player, Post Orgasmic Chill, which eschewed the alternative punk sound of previous efforts for a bold, nu-metal sheen. Skunk Anansie broke up in 2001, with Skin moving on to a solo career (releasing Fleshwounds in 2003 and Fake Chemical State in 2006).

The group re-formed in early 2009, playing sold-out shows and recording three new tracks for a greatest-hits album, Smashes & Trashes. The reunion went so well that they decided to stick together and record a new album, Wonderlustre, released in 2010, with the track "You Saved Me" used in Zack Snyder's 2011 movie Sucker Punch, along with their remix of Björk's "Army of Me."

The band released its fifth album, Black Traffic, in September 2012 and backed it with an extensive European tour. The group followed this up with the live album Acoustic Skunk Anansie: Live in London, a recording of their performance at Cadogan Hall, London, in April 2013, before their sixth studio effort, Anarchytecture, arrived in 2016, marking a return to the melody-driven hard rock of the group's heyday. The following year, the band released 25live@25, a compilation album that traversed 25 years of live material. A long hiatus preceded the release of 2025's The Painful Truth, an intrepid and forward-thinking effort rooted in themes of struggle, resilience, and identity.

TRACKLIST

1. Skunk Anansie - An Artist Is An Artist
2. Skunk Anansie - This Is Not Your Life
3. Skunk Anansie - Shame
4. Skunk Anansie - Lost and Found
5. Skunk Anansie - Cheers
6. Skunk Anansie - Shoulda Been You
7. Skunk Anansie - Animal
8. Skunk Anansie - Fell In Love With A Girl
9. Skunk Anansie - My Greatest Moment
10. Skunk Anansie - Meltdown