Review: Sleater-Kinney - The Woods

Sleater-Kinney are an amazing band. Corin Tucker is the most interesting female singer in punk and for a three piece they manage to create intense walls of complex and emotional music larger bands can only hope to replicate. There's nothing bad I have to say about Sleater-Kinney. Now, why is it I can only listen to a few songs at a time before changing any of their discs?

2005's The Woods is their seventh studio release in ten years, and when critics lauded their new maturity I knew something was wrong. The general gist was that Sleater-Kinney learned to "rock", which often can only mean they slowed down, wigged out and, excuse the irony, cock-rocked. The Woods starts fast and ends slow, which means I can finally listen to every song I want to on a Sleater-Kinney cd before turning it off.

There's a psychedelic feel to some of the songs, and the complexity of the structures are more intricate, which is easier at a slower pace. In the middle of "What's Mine Is Yours" there's a psychedelic metal guitar wig-out so out of character I wondered if this was a bow to No Wave. My favorite tracks are "Jumpers" and "Entertain".

Before writing this I went back and listened to both cds of the Liliput compilation. There's a line here, Sleater-Kinney progressing way beyond what Liliput was capable of, but a line still the same.