BOLD, opinionated and unashamedly in your face, Skunk Anansie are back on tour this month and heading to Bristol for a night of rocking good music.

With iconic vocalist Skin sounding as good as she always did, the band promise to be ‘the best live act in the UK’ and say they haven’t lost any of the enthusiasm and excitement which won them a Kerrang award for Best British Live Act in 1996.

Speaking to the Gazette ahead of their gig at Bristol’s O2 Academy this Sunday, March 24, Skin, whose performances are described as ‘black feminist rage’, brazenly declared: “We are definitely worth the money.

“We are one of the best live bands in England. I see a lot of bands and we are better.”

The singer, whose nineties hits Weak and Hedonism won not only acclaim with the critics but promoted her to legendary status among angst-ridden adolescents, said Skunk Anansie’s break-up in 2001 and subsequent reformation in 2009 was a thing of the past.

“I don’t see our reformation as relevant any more,” she said. “For us we are just like any normal functioning band. But we are loving it much more than the first time around.

“We’re older and wiser which I think is a good thing. Our approach to things is calmer but we still have wonderful chemistry together.”

She said the music industry was almost unrecognisable now, nearly 20 years since the band released its first album, Paranoid and Sunburnt, in 1995.

“The most important thing is the industry has changed. It is completely different to what we did in the nineties and now we are much more of our own band. We run it ourselves and although it is a lot more work, it is a lot more fun.”

She said they band, aka Skin, Cass, Ace and Mark Richardson, would play a lot of material from their new album Black Traffic but there would be a good mix of the band’s extensive back catalogue.

“I like I Believed in You and Sad, Sad, Sad always goes down well. People have favourites from all of our five studio albums,” said Skin. “That is typical of every band but there will be a smattering of everything, old and new.

“It will be full frontal energy with the biggest production we have ever had and the biggest show we have ever done with a few tricks up ourselves as well.”

Skunk Anansie play the O2 Academy Bristol this Sunday, March 24. Tickets from GigsandTours.com