Album Review: Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love
Like most things in life, I was pretty late to the party on
Sleater-Kinney. It was a name I always recognized after seeing advertisements
for their albums in “Rolling Stone” in the 90s. But it was after we started
watching “Portlandia” that I thought I should give the band’s canon a chance,
heavily favoring the classic Dig Me Out
and their “final” album from 2005, The
Woods.
The mythology and meaning behind the band and the “riot grrrl”
movement has only continued to grow in the last decade, and the name
“Sleater-Kinney” continues to have a profile, thanks to guitarist Carrie
Brownstein’s work on “Portlandia,” and her one-off project with Sleater-Kinney
drummer Janet Weiss Wild Flag. So arriving a decade after the band’s break up, the
Portland trio has returned with No Cities
to Love: a return to form of sorts for the trio; working back into the
brash punk/pop sensibilities that made up their earlier efforts before arriving
at the bombastic, expansive sound of The
Woods, No Cities is 10 tracks,
clocking in at a lean 33 minutes of face melting, shredding rock and roll.
The album opens with a slight self-aware nod to the band’s
reunion—whether intentional or not, in the form of the lyric, “The clothes are stiff, the fabrics itch, the
fit’s a little rough.” Lyrically and musically, No Cities to Love is all “go for broke” moments, from huge
shout-a-long refrains (on pretty much every song), to Weiss’ frantic drumming,
the dual guitar work between Corin Tucker and Brownstein, then of course,
there’s Tucker’s own other-worldly, unhinged howling vocals, something she
manages to keep in check on No Cities,
which is surprising given the theatrics she displayed on some of her solo tunes
in the past, as well as older SK tracks like “Dig Me Out” and “The Fox.”
For someone who didn’t discover Sleater-Kinney during their
initial run, I don’t have the emotional connection that some have with them. No Cities, as a whole, is an enjoyable,
and often fun listen. It’s an interesting album full of
juxtapositions—particularly the punk brashness of the intent with this set of
ten songs, butted up against pretty meticulous, slick sounding production. It’s
not the kind of album that, like, sounds like it cost a fortune to make, but it
also wasn’t recorded on a 4-track in someone’s basement. You can tell that a
lot of meticulous thought was put into getting back into “that Sleater-Kinney
sound.”
It’s also that “sound” that turns into a bit of a corner the
band back itself into early on, which is why it’s okay that this album is only
33 minutes long. The band rarely shifts out of their comfort zone when it comes
to fast-paced, high-energy songwriting on No
Cities, which means that after a little while, it all starts to sound a
little samey.
The band has come a long way from jeans and t-shirts to the
pant suits they can be seen wearing in the promotional effort behind No Cities. They’re grown women making
music for other grown ups, but specifically for grown ups who are still punk
rock kids deep down somewhere. It’s not a groundbreaking album, but it doesn’t
need to be. In their first life, Sleater-Kinney was already groundbreaking.
Don’t call it a comeback. Don’t call it a victory lap. It’s a welcome return
(and return to form) for a band that did, and still has, something urgent to say
with its music.
Comments
Post a Comment