This year celebrated the 25th anniversary of Skunk Anansie's career and for this occasion, she released her first official live show (excluding acoustics). By chance from the calendar, the quarter of a century is the age of the band (or collective) Archive. Rather than making a live performance, the English decided to look back and offer not just a simple best of but a retrospective in several formats (2 or 4 CDs, 6 vinyls). The maximum version contains no less than 43 titles including 6 unreleased ones!
If some will find the process very or even purely mercantile, surfing in particular on the fashion of the vinyls brought up to date and often sold out of price, the approach represents however an ultimate gift for the fans of the band, whether they are new or old. Indeed, the advantage of such an undertaking is to make it possible not to hide certain periods of the band and to reduce the feeling of frustration that accompanies the realization of a best of which omits certain titles in order to be able to enter in one or two CDs.
Indeed, no other collective has known as many periods as Archive. Through external experimentation and collaboration, Archive has touched on an impressive number of styles by combining them, allowing it to maintain a certain interest with the risk of losing fans in the process. The fan thus finds the trip hop / rap ambiences of "Londinium" from which the eponymous track and "Nothing Else' are extracted, but also the pop atmospheres of "Take My Head", passing through the claim and rather progressive "Controlled Crowd" until the most recent "Axiom". No period having passed in silence, the listener is invited to a journey within a band that has never ceased to seek to renew itself continuously.
A few new titles further strengthen this retrospective, some of which demonstrate the open-mindedness of the collective inclined to all collaboration, such as with the band of Skulls for the almost progressive title "Remains Of Nothing". This meeting brings a more rock aspect to Archive which has not finished testing, not usurping its qualification as a musical laboratory.
This retrospective, whatever its format, is the ultimate gift to fans. Archive is thus celebrating its 25 years of career and proves with the new titles that it has not yet said its last word by perpetuating a sound research that both makes it charming but gives it a chameleon aspect that can leave some fans on the side of the road.