Skunk Anansie - Post Orgasmic Chill (1999)

(originally posted on Facebook)

This has been the hardest album to locate thus far. It looks like Skunk Anansie goes out of their way to scrub the internet of their presence. This album wasn't available on rdio.com, myspace, or even youtube. I suppose I could have tried one of the P2P methods of old, but it's been so long since I've needed to go that route, and I don't really trust them anymore. Luckily this album was available through amazon.com's marketplace, so I could get a used copy on CD for only a couple of dollars. As such this is the first album I've reviewed that I've actually purchased.

I hope it's worth it.

...

Well, as it turns out this CD was made in the late 90s when bands thought it was hip to make their albums "interactive" including videos or web links or some other crap. So the album won't play on my computer because it thinks the CD is a data disc rather than a music disc. To be fair to these assholes, it's probable that in 1999 they thought everyone would be using CD players as the primary music-listening devices for all time. Those players would see this as an album. But that's just not the way the world works anymore. Now I have to play this in my car, which is the last place I have a true CD player.

...

So yeah, uh... Skunk Anansie - Post Orgasmic Chill (1999)

I listened to this on my long Friday ride home. It wasn't terrible. I would call it aggressive cock-rock if it weren't for the band's female lead singer. There's nothing special about the music, although the band did try to make things epic by including strings. It's just that the songs aren't really deep, so the orchestration just adds more sound rather than complimenting a complex melody. I think what really got to me was the lead singer's voice.

The music had plenty of punk and heavy-metal influences, so she did a lot of yelling. There were also a few calmer ballad type songs where she was meant to be soulful. But her voice was so tinny, so thin, so breathy, it just didn't work either way. She also didn't sustain very well, leading to a natural tremolo effect which got worse when she was double-tracked. I probably would have liked this music more with a better singer. 2 stars.

Hopefully I'll be able to resell this album on ebay or amazon.com marketplace, because I don't feel like keeping it.