Album Review: Sleater-Kinney, 'No Cities to Love'
February 23, 2015
Much like the Die Hard quadrilogy, you don't have to be well-versed in Sleater-Kinney's previous work to be able to understand and adore their latest offering, No Cities to Love. In fact, the new record might be one of the best entry points for new fans that the band has ever recorded.
For their first new album in 10 years, the recently reunited band crammed themselves into a tiny basement to crank out a batch of new songs, and the music sounds just as tight and compact and explosive as you'd imagine that kind of cramped situation would produce. This albums cranks, with neither the tempo nor the energy flagging across all 10 tracks, and it's hard not to want to bust out one of Carrie Brownstein's signature leg kicks while rocking out to bombastic tracks like the album's lead single, "Bury Our Friends."
Musically, the album features Sleater-Kinney's signature interlocking guitar parts, with dueling players Brownstein and Corin Tucker battling to see who can come up with the catchiest riff. And lyrically, the songs speak to the band's decades-long commitment to promoting female empowerment and confidence "We win, we lose, only together do we break the rules," Brownstein and Tucker sing together on the anthemic "Surface Envy," while the irresistible track "A New Wave" is a mission statement for doing things your own way for your own reasons and own happiness, judgmental normies be damned: "No one here is taking notice/No outline will ever hold us/It's not a new wave, it's just you and me/Eyes are the only witness/Die to prove we ever lived this/Invent our own kind of obscurity."
The biggest potential obstacle for new Sleater-Kinney fans might be the sound of Tucker's voice, which is unapologetically brash and occasionally bleating, but it's especially suited for some of the more classic rock and heavy metal-influenced riffs on No Cities to Love. And I actually love that she occasionally sounds like she's channeling Ann Wilson from Heart — especially when she's belting her heart out on songs like "Gimme Love." For my money, I wouldn't want to hear the songs on this album any other way.