Sleater-Kinney

Sleater Kinney's fourth LP is no less powerful than their previous albums -- it just takes longer to realize it. Less overtly political and anthemic than its predecessors, The Hot Rock finds new layers of complexity and emotion. "The End of You" features some of Carrie Brownstein's finest guitar work, while Corin Tucker's vocals are nothing short of stunning.

In a lean time for american rock bands, Sleater-Kinney show how you can thrive by staying
on your toes and calling your own shots. This Olympia, Washington, trio won legions of
loyal fans with two of the decade's finest albums, 1996's Call the Doctor and 1997's Dig Me
Out, bringing the femme-punk noise with guitars from The Clash and vocals from The Craft.
But they take chances with their sound on The Hot Rock, named after a bitchin'... More >

What's hard to get used to here, and what's also freshest and perhaps best, is how Corin and Carrie's voices intertwine--even reading the booklet it's hard to keep track of who's saying what to whom about what, as if they'd fallen in love with (or to) the Velvets' "Murder Mystery." Not that meanings would be crystalline in any case, or that they should be. With Cadallaca an outlet for Corin's girlish ways, S-K emerges as a diary of adulthood in all its encroaching intricacy. I mean, the guitars don't crunch like they used to either, and that's the very reason "Get Up" sounds like death and desire at the same time. The reason "The Size of Our Love" sounds like death, on the other hand, is that sometimes love is death. Nobody ever said maturity would be fun and games. (Grade - A)