Sleater-Kinney

Five years after the inception of the Olympia, Wash., riot grrrl scene – where bands and
fanzines tucked raw feminist credos inside Hello Kitty trimmings – the movement's root
sentiments still haven't gone much farther than indie record stores and campus-friendly
rock clubs. Instead, riot grrrls are viewed as a novelty: Their ironic little-girl dress sense
turned into a pedophile's wet dream, and their girl-power messages were reduc... More >

Like the blues, punk is a template that shapes young misfits' sense of themselves, and like the blues it takes many forms. This is a new one, and it's damn blueslike. Powered by riffs that seem unstoppable even though they're not very fast, riding melodies whose irresistibility renders them barely less harsh, Corin Tucker's enormous voice never struggles more inspirationally against the world outside than when it's facing down the dilemmas of the interpersonal--dilemmas neither eased nor defined by her gender preferences, dilemmas as bound up with family as they are with sex. As partner/rival/Other Carrie Brownstein puts it in an eloquently tongue-tied moment: "It's just my stuff." Few if any have played rock's tension-and-release game for such high stakes--revolution as existentialism, electric roar as acne remedy. They wanna be our Joey Ramone, who can resist that one? But squint at the booklet and you'll see they also want to be our Thurston Moore. They want it both ways, every which way. And most of the time they get it. (Grade: A)