One Beat [CD]

With the return of producer John Goodmanson from the Dig Me Out days, you'd almost expect a home coming to that edgy unpolished sound. Expect better. In fact, there are spots on this album have more raw energy than anything since Call the Doctor, but with all the maturity that the band's developed since The Hot Rock
and All Hands. The sound is much richer, with many more layers than any outing before. In fact, Sleater-Kinney counterpoint begins almost to approach the majesty of a cathedral choir, backed up by its organ. The guitars develop a monolithic wall of sound that cannot be gotten around, and cannot be pierced. This album won't disappoint any Sleater-Kinney fan, no matter what era she may be partial to.

Though you can hear plenty of straight-ahead words and guitar punk rock, there's tons more. Just like everyone rock band in the world, there's a fresh element of electronica, but unlike everyone else, the instrument is a theremin, one of the very first electronic instruments, before the synthesizers now everywhere aro
und the music world. There's an element of soul, especially in the last song Sympathy, which if it weren't for Corin's distinctive voice (a familiar Olympia from the South reminiscent of a Kurt Cobain), you'd almost mistake it for a song from The Gossip.

The impact of September 11th can be obviously felt on this album. "Far Away", which from the Pacific Northwest, New York must have seemed, is an especially piercing reminder of that inexplicable sudden nausea everyone felt that day. You feel it again in the guitar, in an unfamiliar dissonance in the familiar Corin-Carrie counterpoint. Even with a new found patriotism, the classic antiauthoritarianism of punk rock can still be felt with "and the president hides / while working men rush in / to give their lives." While Dan Rather, and all the news networks forgot about the administration's cowardice immediately upon the news of the
attacks, punk rock has not. Compared with the war mongering of the President, unconstitutional detention of 'suspects' and the vote mongering in step marching by the Democrats, the patriotism that Sleater-Kinney sings, "Where is the questioning, where is the protest song / since when is skepticism un-American" in Combat Rock makes it OK to be patriotic in that gut level sense that one feels reluctant to in the face of what it has been used as an excuse for.

With a sudden expansion of the scope of their politics, they don't leave out the personal. While the first two albums were unmediated screams of pain, these songs are cold, calculated revenge. These are deep wounds that have been festering, the ones that no longer occupy your every thought, but are still palpably there. With lines like "Nobody lingers like your hands on my heart / nobody figures like you've figured me out" in Oh, this is up close and personal. My favorite song on the album, though, still has to be Light Rail Coyote. The title enough says everything. It's about urban wildlife. It's about the one that doesn't fit in, but still manages to scrape together an existence. Yet there's this desperation to it, in "Find me on the eve of suicide / Tell me the city is no place to hide." This is your existence too, and mine.I can't say what this album will do as an introduction to the band--I lost that innocence when I fell in love with the band a long time ago. Still, don't miss this one.

Ok here we go again...picture it now...that face of intense disbelief and shock - that "hurts so good" - (like you just tasted a lemon expression) when the new Sleater-Kinney album comes blasting out of the speakers. I'm here to tell you that "One Beat" delivers it like a sugar rush straight to your head, baby. Cuts through all the retro/fashionable rock BS like a knife through butter. If you had any doubts that S-K couldn't hold it down for a SIXTH album straight (SIXTH!) - then prepare to be surprised. What other band's output has been so flawless? It's been a while since the group last dropped "All Hands On The Bad One" and then came the Time magazine feature. The best rock 'n roll band in the world? For the ones who have been with them since Lori was the drummer - that's a surreal experience. Since then, I've moved away from rock and onto more electronica, hip-hop, soul, and jazz in my musical diet - considering my punk rock days dead and gone. It's been a while since I've touched anything with just guitars and drums in two years? But I'll always support S-K because they are the singular punk band of our time that will stand when the dust clears. I got money on it. Ok so let me tell you about this album. It's all there: the jagged guitar interplay, the welps, cathartic screams, and the HOOKS, god help us - the hooks. Then there's dashes of funk horns and synths. Yeah you heard me right. But like the best groups, S-K has a synergy between it's members. The most similiar thing I can think of is like the conversational aesthetic of hip-hop. Corin, Carrie, and Janet are made for each other - you can't fake this. Oh yeah, the songs are ALL good - I could go into them but [what the heck], just buy the album.

Sleater - Kinney have never made a bad album, but fans have been waiting for one as incendiary as their 3rd effort, Dig Me Out, which is now rightly regarded as a 90's classic. Its follow-up, The Hot Rock, was more contemplative and varied, and the group tried out a new producer, Roger Moutenot. It was a mixed success. The songs that retained the band's trademark fiery passion were enjoyable as always, but some songs felt forced or unnecessarily toned-down for the sake of variation. The next record, All Hands On The Bad One, found S-K back with producer John Goodmanson and was more straightforwardly rocking, but some weak moments still persisted. With their sixth album One Beat, fans may finally find a worthy sucessor to the brilliant Dig Me Out. It's not that it sounds like that album at all, but it maintains a similar sense of urgency and passion throughout that has been missing lately.
There are new things to be heard as well...the band is experimenting with keyboards, violin and even a horn section on the raucous "step aside". The political slant that has always set the group apart is stronger than ever, especially on a couple of songs ("faraway" and "combat rock") that address the post 9/11 situation. The latter is especially arresting and provides the centerpiece of the record both musically and emotionally. Carrie Brownstein delivers verses in a clipped, hiccuping tone before Corin Tucker comes in with a typically urgent, wailing chorus as guitars chime, sparkle and crash behind them. The lyrics are among their best, adressing the often misguided patriotism of these times with lines such as "since when is skepticism un-American?/dissent's not treason but they talk like it's the same/those who disagree are afraid to show their face."
Every song on this album is a gem. Whether it proves to be as high, or higher than, "Dig Me Out" on my list remains to be seen, but it's undoubtedly worth every bit of praise it gets. Buy it soon, and you'll even get a two-song bonus disc, including a charming tribute to Tucker's baby boy, with the heartfelt words "I'd like to show you a million things/like to make the world for you a better place." At the very least, these women can be assured they've made today's music scene a better place.