I loved Skunk Anansie for their intense Rock, their honest rage and unleashed energy. Skin, Cass, Ace and Mark Richardson formed Skunk Anansie in March 1994, disbanded in 2001 and reformed in 2009. In 2004, the band was named as one of the most successful UK chart acts between 1952 and 2003 by the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums, with a total of 141 weeks on both the singles and album charts ranking them at #491. I loved their murderous 95’s debut “Paranoid and Sunburnt” , and the following two albums, “Stoosh” and “Post Orgasmic Chill”, before their 2001 disbanding. Their come back album, the 2009’s “Smashes and Trashes” was a quite honorable return while their latest release, the 2010’s “Wonderlustre” was more of a Pop Rock album, then the furious Rock band we used to know.
“Black Traffic” is somewhere inbetween, some of their tooth grow back, but still have a few mediocre, predictable, media-friendly moments as the totally boring “I Hope You Get To Meet Your Hero” and the almost tasteless “Driving Down”.
The highlights are the more driven “Satisfied” and the pumping “Sad Sad Sad”; the quite Popish, but smoothly catchy pseudo-ballad “Our Summer Kills The Sun”; smoothly commercial, but pretty chill it’s the minimalist and nicely layered “Drowning”; and there is something from their prior energy in “Sticky Fingers In Your Honey”.
They visibly made some efforts to deliver what people expected, but also tried to satisfy the nowadays media demands as well and sneak one or two ballads in the charts. The times of charting ballads, I think it’s gone. But still, “Black Traffic” at least have more then half of record of excellent Rock songs. Not convinced 100%, but listen throughout was not quite a waste of time, so, this is fifty-fifty.
Tracklist:
01. I Will Break You
02. Sad Sad Sad
03. Spit You Out-(Feat. Shaka Ponk)
04. I Hope You Get To Meet Your Hero
05. I Believed In You
06. Satisfied
07. Our Summer Kills The Sun
08. Drowning
09. This Is Not A Game
10. Sticky Fingers In Your Honey
11. Driving Down
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQtqo808jXk&w=550&h=309]
