The NME review of this album is curt and petulant, spitting back like a teenager just chastised for leaving dirty pants on the bedroom floor: The people who made this album have an average age of 46. They need to retire. NOW.
It certainly isn’t contemporary indie crap, and Skin definitely doesn’t whisperdrawl in a fashionable affected slur. I always used to enjoy Skunk Anansie’s rowdy live shows and Skin’s authentic snarl at the inequities of life in Britain and in general, and I confess nostalgia makes me more accepting of an album that I confess isn’t doing anything new. But like the retrorock I have been celebrating here of late, this is a heavy rock sound that hasn’t altered but is reproduced now with power if not the creative range of those first few albums. How many one-off whippersnappers of today will be able to make similar claims? I know it’s cool and casual to dismiss any such aspirations, but wait until you’re a little older. Dirty pants just smell.
Opener I Will Break You is a classic pounder, second Sad Sad Sad is the radio-friendly rockpop stalwart, seventh Our Summer Kills The Sun is the gorgeous sweet song where Skin harmonises and takes her voice to its higher beautiful register, ninth This Is Not A Game is a little twee for me, but tenth Sticky Fingers In Your Honey is a reasonably rousing rant at greed. The album ends on Diving Down which is again all Skin with her rising harmonies and distinctive vocal. Yep, absolutely predictable and so 46ish.
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