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By Jeanne Kalosieh
They
are the saviors of rock.
They
know how to rock. Carrie
Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss are painfully smarter than the
competition and they know it. All
Hands on the Bad One is another chapter in the Sleater-Kinney
textbook. The
Bad One is sassier, classier, and rougher than anything they’ve
written in the past. After the
first listen, you may not like it as much as you thought you would.
But swallow it down, that jagged little pill.
The
Bad One is a much more political album, and Sleater-Kinney could give a shit if
you’re a member of their party.
After living through a year of misogynist music, Fred Durst, Detroit
rappers, and Woodstock rapers, is it any wonder that Sleater-Kinney lashed
out? This
band is a different brand of girl-power - one that doesn’t victimize women
or pretty them up. Rather,
this brand exalts women’s innate ass-kicking potential.
It’s the brand that popular culture forgot exists.
Tucker’s
unbridled wailing strikes out with a caustic aftertaste that wasn’t as harsh
on their last CD, The
Hot Rock. The guitars
are less intricate; there’s little head-on collision this time around.
Brownstein and Tucker are playing on the same stylistic plane, making
the harmonies a bit less fierce. The
power of the
Bad One lies elsewhere. The
bite comes from the overlapping and energy shifting on the vocals.
Brownstein sings with clean precision, while Tucker’s yelping soars
and Weiss acts as the shadow.
Some
of the better songs include the head-banging “Ironclad,” the party-pooper
salute, “You’re No Rock N Roll Fun,” the ear-ripping “Youth Decay,”
and the funny, scorned-lover tune, “Milkshake and Honey.”
To hear Sleater-Kinney working together at their best, try the title
track, which contains the album’s most inventive musical arrangement.
To
sum up the Bad One’s presiding emotional charisma, listen to the killer
track, “Male Model.” A fed-up
Tucker sings “he talks to me in my sleep.
Does he write my songs for me? Should
I try to play just like him? You
always measure me by him. I’m
so sick of tests. Go ahead and
FLUNK MY ASS!! Cuz you don’t
own the situation honey, you don’t own the stage.
We’re here to join the conversation, we’re here to raise the
stakes.”
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