Sleater-Kinney were loosely associated with riot grrrl, with the key songwriters coming from Heavens To Betsy (Corin Tucker) and Excuse 17 (Carrie Brownstein). On the release of their third album with their second band, I expected them to be road hardened rock warriors, with a stage presence comparable to Bikini Kill, or even L7, Babes In Toyland, 7 Year Bitch and Lunachicks. But seeing them live for the first time, I was surprised to encounter cherubic round faces and eyes as big as an anime character. Don’t let the looks of these young 23 year-olds fool you (new girl, drummer Janet Weiss is the senior member by many years), however, as Tucker unfurls a blood-boiling banshee shriek as powerful as a pack of Robert Plants, and Brownstein stalks the stage like Pete Townshend. Weiss is impressively powerful, pounding the drums with much more force and authority than the various drummers who contributed to the more shambolic previous albums, Sleater-Kinney (1995) and Call The Doctor (1996).
While still not as heavy as most of the previously mentioned bands, their bass-free intertwining guitars are constantly completing each other’s musical sentences. I felt as if I’m eavesdropping on an intricate conversation I can’t quite grasp, but am very motivated to find out what happens. From what I can tell, sexual and cultural scene politics are set on a backburner at a low simmer, and relationships end, hearts break, new ones blossom, more friction ensues. Their sound is unique not just because of lack of bass, but because they choose pretty consistently grim sounding minor keys while still managing to sound uplifting at times, in a way akin to early Throwing Muses and Helium. I also hear some influence from guitarist Christina Billotte (who also served in Autoclave with Helium’s Mary Timony) of Slant 6. Sleater-Kinney have substantially more kinetic energy than these bands, which doesn’t inherently make them surpass them. But as of Dig Me Out, their songwriting sure the heck does.
Title track “Dig Me Out” scorches, leaving their previous work lost in the dust and smoke. “Turn It On,” “Not What You Want” and “Things You Say” offer compelling drama, while “Words And Guitar” and “Little Babies” switch things up with a more upbeat feel and pogo-worthy rhythms. Of this consistently excellent batch of toons, however, one in particular absolutely slays me, leaving me in a stunned puddle, feeling all the damn things they poured into it that’s almost too much to take in the space of 3:19 — “One More Hour.” Anyone who’s gone through a devastating breakup and isn’t yet dead inside can testify, this song nails it. Fucking hell it does, fuck! FUUUUCCCKK! I can’t speak intelligently to this, it’s just too damn much. Let me just say that it rivals the band’s previous flagship song, “Good Things” as a killer classic, one that will reduce your sad middle-aged ass to a blubbering mess in 20 years.
So how to end an album if this quality and intensity? A disco song! Well okay, “Dance Song ’97” is actually the penultimate track, and is still bittersweetly melancholy, more emo than Blondie. “Jenny” closes it out with a bit of a dirge, but still quite powerful. On their third album, Sleater-Kinney have surpassed their influences, and are making a solid case for belonging in the immortal pantheon of punk godmothers like The Slits, Au Pairs, X-Ray Spex, Liliput and the Avengers. These are heartbreakingly passionate songs, that, whether they were written from girl to boy or from girl to girl, anyone should appreciate its honesty.
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