Skunk Anansie - Black Traffic


Tonight I was at a pub quiz, and the final question of the music round was 'Skin is the lead singer of which band?' An hour or so when marking, the room collectively shrugged "who?" when presented the two words Skunk Anansie. The review prior to this talked of the fickle nature of pop music, but angst-driven rock music seems to suffer from the same fate. Recent "dark" bands like AFI, Billy Talent and Placebo seem to have been thrown to the side in favour of new Kerrang! and NME scene-darlings You Me At Six, Black Veil Brides and Bring me the Horizon. The capacity for alternative rock to succeed in the charts has totally dried up, but only 15 years ago Skunk Anansie were loitering on the outside of the UK top 10 singles chart positions on a regular basis.

Part of their longevity and continued relative album success must be down to the band's incredibly distinctive nature. Skin, of course, is about as enigmatic and fun (see: fierce) as you can get a frontwoman to be. The problem is, I too was one of those shruggers up until the release of 2010's Wonderlustre, and only then did I bother to look back on the 90s singles and other occasional good song.


And the problem with Black Traffic is that - where with Wonderlustre I was able to pick out a couple of songs I instantly loved (God Loves Only You, My Ugly Boy) - I can't really find anything here that doesn't tread over the same material and themes that they've done hundreds of times before. There's no stand-out ballsy moment, there's no sing-along reverie, and there's no real reason to want to listen to this again and again. It's rather the Skunk Anansie equivalent of lentils. A bit bland, but it'll do. They try to recreate epic moments on 'This is Not a Game' and 'I Will Break You', and indeed they're both fine songs, but the rest is just a mire of mediocrity.


Rating: 4/10
Highlights:This is Not a Game, Spit You Out, I Will Break You, I Hope You Get to Meet Your Hero
Avoid: Sad Sad Sad, Drowning, Satisfied?, Driving Down

Artwork Watch: Probably Louie Spence's idea of what a vagina looks like.
Up next: G.O.O.D. Music  

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