Sleater-Kinney

Almost from the moment Sleater-Kinney struck their first chord eight years ago in Olympia,
Washington, the punk trio has delivered one of the most arresting sounds in rock: a
hailstorm of chiming, percussive guitars and keening harmonies. From the start, the band's
best music was fired by righteous outrage -- at a desiccated rock scene, at sexism, at
suffocating social conformity. But unlike many of their Nineties indie-rock peers,... More >

Sleater-Kinney is one of three unapologetically political bands to respond to September 2001's world-change with August 2002 albums, and it's remarkable how different they are. The Mekons are cynical and defiant; Springsteen is spiritual and uplifting. Yet both seem worn out, as if neither defiance nor uplift can get them out of bed in the morning. Sleater-Kinney, on the other hand, go for defiant uplift and seem energized by the challenge. Probably it isn't the stance that energizes them--it's their energy that powers the stance. Not only are they a generation younger, they're riding the crest of a wild success burdened by neither the Mekons' quarter-century of subsistence nor Springsteen's felt responsibility to 10 million consumers--not to mention that Corin spent 2001 with her new baby, who plays a suitably small and crucial role in her September 11 song. Throughout they bubble and shriek--literally in the opener, where Corin's "bubble in a sound wave" is the secret of both social and nuclear fusion, and in the career guitar line Carrie lays under "Oh!" Let "Step Aside" do its thing and you'll "shake a tail feather for peace and love" no matter what your weary self thinks of protest songs. (Grade: A)