Urgency. Bite. Abrasion. Everything we missed in an album Sleater-Kinney from “No cities to love” (2015) is here. Either because of the crunchy production of John Congleton who extracts gold from the balance between the click of digital and the analog crack of electric guitars that for Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker are a distinctive tool, or because of the dramatic circumstances that framed its recording (the death of Carrie’s mother and stepfather in a traffic accident while on vacation in Italy) gave her that character of mourning-that-doesn’t-want-to-seem-because-it-squeezes-life, either because Olympia’s try to never repeat itself and simply this is what was now time. It is a vibrant eleventh album, as rough as it is seductive, exciting at all times, which rescues the duo’s ability to combine fierceness and irrefutable pop hooks. And with Corin Tucker taking center stage vocally, perhaps because Carrie Brownstein needed it.
“Needlesly Wild” y “Small Finds” They sound challenging and sexy. “Don’t Feel Right” It’s irresistibly catchy.. “Six mistakes” It’s a barbaric barrage of wild rock like no other since “The Woods” (2005): its central section is a black hole in which to get lost. “Crusader” It is a synth pop banger on par with the best of their production of the last five years. AND “Untidy creature”, The closing and precisely the song with which it all began, resonates with an anguish and rage that perfectly encapsulate the tone of an album that also had an excellent calling card in “Say It Like You Mean It”, the closest thing they have ever done to Fleetwood Mac, apart from this cover. It is difficult to imagine a better way to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary as a band.