Skin: Skunk Anansie 'jumped off a cliff' when creating The Painful Truth album

27 May 2025, 08:00 | Updated: 28 May 2025, 16:08

Skunk Anansie 'jumped off a cliff' for new album

Skin revealed to John Kennedy how the band had to push through and let go of their previous formula when creating their seventh studio album.

Skunk Anansie went through a lot of 'pain' to make their new album.

The alt-rockers released their seventh studio album, The Painful Truth, on Friday 23rd March and Skin explained to John Kennedy in an X-Posure Track by Track Album Playback why the band had to take a leap of faith when creating the record and "develop a new sound".

Speaking about wanting the album to develop as they were in the studio rather than having 10 songs already prepared, the singer explained: "We wanted to do a few songs, have a listen and develop a new sound, because I think that to be really honest, a painful truth is, maybe Skunk Anansie were a band that was in slow decline because like a lot of bands from the 90s, we've been around a long time."

"It was all about trying to find a new sound, and it was quite painful," the Cheers singer went on. "It's quite a hard thing to do when you're so used to doing things a certain way. And we kept going and kept going. We just it just felt like we just held hands and jumped off the cliff and hoped that we were going to land in order."

Watch our clip above.

Listen back to the full track by track album playback here.

The Painful Truth - which is the first album to come from the band in nine years and the first of their records on the newly-formed FLG Records - was released to critical acclaim last week.

Featuring nine songs on its tracklist and produced by David Sitek of TV On The Radio fame, the album is described in a press release as a "fresh, frank, uplifting and textured album, with the band’s knack for writing big pop songs remaining defiantly undiminished."

“When I really think about it, yes, we have made some good records in our time but it’s been a long time since we have made a great album. And that is the painful truth,” confesses Skin. “Understanding that, led us to making what I genuinely think is our greatest record yet.”

Stream the album in full below:

Skunk Anansie - The Painful Truth tracklisting:

1. An Artist Is An ArtistThis Is Not Your Life
2. Shame
3. Lost And Found
4. Cheers
5. Shoulda Been You
6. Animal
7. Fell In Love With A Girl
8. My Greatest Moment
9. Meltdown

To celebrate the release of the new album, Skin and co plotted seven days of album release shows across the country, with sold out dates still remaining at The Bullingdon in Oxford on 27th May, at Rough Trade Nottingham on 28th May and at Pryzm Kingston on 29th May.

Skunk Anansie have another run of huge European headline shows this summer before they appear as special guests at Smashing Pumpkins' UK dates in August.

Visit www.skunkanansie.com for their full list of live dates and to buy tickets.

Read more:

• Skunk Anansie's Skin: Our story was being whitewashed by Britpop
• Skunk Anansie's Skin: "I didn’t have any examples of me"
• What does Skunk Anansie mean? The story of the band's name and more