Moving sucks. And after being a college student for all of seven
\nyears, I’ve become accustomed to boxing things up and moving at the
\ndrop of a thirty day notice. (Usually due to house roommates
\npacking up and leaving on a short notice) Just when you find that
\nright apartment, scoped out every nitch of its charm, you find
\nyourself in a new environment. And in most cases, that new
\nenvironment isn’t nearly as cozy as your last.<\/p>\n
Okay, enough with the apartment analogy. Much like getting used
\nto a new place, getting used to a musical departure takes some
\neffort for music fan. As much courage as it takes an artist to
\nwillfully ask an audience to go down a slightly non-beaten path, it
\ntakes some courage for a listener to keep an open mind.<\/p>\n
Sleater-Kinney’s latest album,
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>, is that sort of album. Their last album,
\nDig Me Out<\/i>, was a joyous romp, think the Go Gos on
\nmethamphetamines. It had monster riffs and the vocal tag team of
\nCarrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker drew some comparisons to the
\nKeith Richards\/Mick Jagger chemistry. The album was so well
\nreceived that it finished behind only Bob Dylan’s
\nTime Out Of Mind<\/i> and Radiohead’s
\nOK Computer<\/i> in the
\nVillage Voice<\/i> “Pazz and Jop Poll” in 1997.<\/p>\n
Though commercial success still evaded the band, that could have
\nbeen solved with one or two
\nDig Me Out<\/i> type hits on
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>. Rock music needs a jolt and it still has a
\nlarge buying audience and Sleater-Kinney is one of those bands that
\ncan tap into that market. But instead of doing a retread of
\nDig Me Out<\/i>, Sleater-Kinney take a different path and come up
\nwith a batch of quiet, slightly subdued tracks on
\nThe Hot Rock.<\/i><\/p>\n
The surprises aren’t immediately there in
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>. While songs like “Little Babies” and “Dance
\nSong ’97” grabbed you by the neck and forced a melody in your head
\nthat you couldn’t escape for the rest of the day. But new songs on
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i> have that quality.<\/p>\n
Still,
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i> shines with tight musicianship. The dual guitar
\nwork of Brownstein and Tucker is as tight wound as ever. And Janet
\nWeiss, the newest member of the band, has a great ear for rhythm:
\nespecially her use of the snare.<\/p>\n
Relationships are still Tucker’s muse on
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>. Her unique lyrics: sometimes spoken in
\nfragments, detail relationships in all stages. On “Burn, Don’t
\nFreeze,” she gets creative, singing, “I’d set your heart on
\nfire\/but arson is no way\/ to make a love burn brighter.” But on
\n“Don’t Talk Like,” she slaps you with a defiant lyric like, “Don’t
\ntalk like you’re nineteen\/you’re thirty-five.”<\/p>\n
Gossip freaks who will try to decipher whether or not each lyric
\nhas some sort of lesbian undertone or overtone to it will totally
\nbe turned off with
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>. Straight\/bi\/gay\/lesbian whatever: in
\nSleater-Kinney’s world, a relationship that falls apart hurts and
\njars just the same in any situation.<\/p>\n
The more I listen to
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>, the more I like it. But the unabashed magic
\nthat the band possessed on
\nDig Me Out<\/i> is lacking on
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i>. It seems the band tried to establish a more
\nsubdued, intimate sound on this album. And they accomplished their
\ngoal. With every listen,
\nThe Hot Rock<\/i> yields more and more rewards. But in the back
\nof your mind, you still pine for an atomic blast like “Words And
\nGuitar” to shake some dust off the top of your speakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5981],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39150","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sleater-kinney","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39150"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}