Skunk Anansie are one of the UK’s most enduring rock bands, a group who have always reacted to never really fitting in to anything else going on around them by fiercely and furiously blazing their own trail. Over the years, their sound has taken in hard rock, metal, punk, post-punk without ever making itself at home, always restlessly pushing on. Take their decision to enlist art-rock and indie dynamo Dave Sitek, a collaborator of Foals, Solange, Santigold and more, on their forthcoming seventh record. Far from a usual choice for a heavy rock band but, for Skunk Anansie, not a huge surprise. Of course they decided to do that.
They have gone their own way since the beginning. It’s 30 years ago this month that they released their debut single Selling Jesus, a barbed, scintillating anthem that immediately set out their stall. It was the mid-90s and Britpop’s fixed grin was beginning to look a bit forced. Here arrived an antidote.
