ALBUM OF THE DAY: SKUNK ANANSIE, WONDERLUSTRE

Last week I saw a friend I literally have not seen and have barely spoken to in several years. I was a little worried that things might be awkward; after all, we had some catching up to do, and people can change an awful lot in a few years. And yet, within moments of sitting down together, it was as though no time had passed whatsoever; we picked up exactly where we left off, and by the end of the night, we vowed not to let so much time pass before we hung out again.

Skunk Anansie’s Wonderlustre, which comes out today, is the band’s first offering in more than a decade. Luckily, it is the musical equivalent of chilling with that old friend and finding that your relationship hasn’t missed a step. Skunk Anansie still sound just like Skunk Anansie, and they still rock.

Of course, that fact might just make Wonderlustre an exercise in nostalgia… if it were the product of a lesser band. Skunk Anansie were never as good as Faith No More or Living Colour, but they shared those bands’ refusal to be pigeonholed; in other words, there’s a Skunk Anansie sound, but no Skunk Anansie style. And so while Wonderlustre could have easily been released just a couple of years after 1999’s Post Orgasmic Chill, it’s not just Post Orgasmic Chill, Part 2. The band can still write a killer alt-rock hook, and Skin’s lyrics are still centered around the themes of religion and politics (“God Loves Only You”), sociological and societal dissatisfaction (“My Ugly Boy”), and unrequited love (“Talk Too Much”) and sexual obsession (“I Will Stay But You Should Leave”), but Wonderlustre is very much its own animal.

So Skunk Anansie continue to prove that pop and rock can successfully coexist without watering one another down, this time in the form of big-band swing-rock (“It Doesn’t Matter”), the first dance anthem not to annoy me since I was in high school (“The Sweetest Thing”), and the best The Police song The Police never wrote (“You’re Too Expensive for Me”). It all pretty much rules. As with Living Colour’s The Chair in the Doorway, I do kinda wish there were a couple of harder moshers here — there’s no “Selling Jesus” or “On My Hotel TV” to make you wanna put your fist through a wall — but, as with The Chair in the Doorway, it ultimately doesn’t matter much, ’cause the record is just so damn good that any complaining feels like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I know there’s been some resistance towards Skunk Anansie within the MetalSucks commenter community, but I can’t really tell from where this hostility stems. But go ahead and don’t check out Wonderlustre, if you’re that stubborn; you’re only depriving yourself.

(four outta five horns)

-AR