Hello! 😊👋
Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!
Today’s music pick is the latest LP from indie rock veterans Sleater-Kinney, a fuzzed-out reckoning with tragedy.
Genre: Alternative, Post Punk
Label: Loma Vista
Release Date: January 19, 2024
Vibe: 🎸
In 2023, I wrote about how several well-known bands found artistic freedom in a “back to basics” approach—paring down their sound to the bare minimum they needed to get their passion and message across. The trend continues here with the latest Sleater-Kinney LP, Little Rope, a fast-paced buzzsaw of a record that distills the indie rock icons’ essence down to its purest form. Instead of elaborate studio pyrotechnics, you get crisp, jagged guitar riffs and cutting, knowing lyrics from Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker. Underpinning the noise-rock whirlwind is the pain of loss and the tenacity required to turn the page. Brownstein’s mother and stepfather died tragically in a car accident while abroad in Italy, and, by all accounts, this record was the process that began healing that wound.
Several tracks on Little Rope rank among the group’s best in some time. Opener “Hell” sounds like it could bust through a brick wall if it needed to, dropping pearls of weary wisdom on its way (” Hell don’t have no future/Hell don’t have no doubt/Hell is just a place that/We can’t seem to live without.”). “Dress Yourself” grapples with how people can keep up airs so convincingly in a world that can be so punishing. “It’s almost shocking what great pretenders we all are,” Brownstein explained to Apple Music. “[The song is] a rallying cry for those of us who can’t believe we’re upright every day.” The high points for me, “Needlessly Wild” and “Say It Like You Mean It,” wrestle with the imperfections of intimacy, running the gamut from romantic to parent-child relationships, and how, stacked up against the unpredictable nature of Father Time, how we never quite know what words will reonsate with whom, and when.
It’s a taut, precisely constructed album that will surely get better with repeat listens.
👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈