Sleater-Kinney managed to establish themselves as one of the best bands of the 90s without having a singular defining album. The best songs from their first five albums certainly make for a killer compilation. Their sixth, however, One Beat, will force you to expand your best-of to two discs, because there’s not a single dud in the batch. “One Beat” stuns within the first verse, Corin Tucker singing with the most explosive conviction she’s ever done — “I’m a bubble in a sound wave/A sonic push for energy/Exploding like the sun/A flash of clean light hope.” Here she’s the feminized version of Iggy Pop’s “streetwalkin’ cheetah with a pocketful of napalm,” an angry force of nature ready to take over the boys and their phallic war toys (“Should I come outside and run your cars/Should I run your rockets to the stars…Could I turn this place all upside down/And shake you and your fossils out/If I’m to run the future/You’ve got to let the old world go”). Anger is an energy, and “One Beat” packs one big emotional whallop.
“Far Away” more specifically addresses the September 11 terror, Corin nurses her baby, turns on the T.V. and watches “the world explode in flames.” The last verse sums it all up with “And the president hides/while working men rush in to give their lives/I look to the sky/And ask it not to rain on my family tonight.” “Oh!” changes direction into relationships, sensuality and some really unique harmonizing. On songs like “The Remainder” and “Light-Rail Coyote,” the band rocks harder than ever, thanks partly to Janet Weiss, who sounds like she’s upgraded her drumsticks to tree trunks, not unlike, dare I say, Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. Other elements like the slightly Middle-Eastern sounding strings also recall Led Zep. “Step Aside” features some Stax-like horns, and on “Combat Rock” Tucker hiccups her way back to politics, providing much-needed skepticism, a sharp relief from all the nauseating flag-waving in the past year — “Hey look it’s time to pledge allegiance/Oh god I love my dirty Uncle Sam…Dissent’s not treason but they talk like it’s the same.”
Throughout the album, Carrie and Corin have demonstrated an added level of sophistication in their guitar playing. On the fantastically creepy “Funeral Song,” (complete with theramin!) it seems they have absorbed the brilliantly serpentine minor-chord innovations that Mary Timony developed while in Helium. The album closes on another killer, “Sympathy,” featuring a bluesy slide guitar, and a nod to the Stones’ classic with a “woo woooo” chorus. Here Tucker really lets loose. When she sings “And I’m so sorry/for those who didn’t make it/and for the mommies who are left with their heart breaking” you can imagine her whole body quaking, channeling the sad, angry spirit of Janis Joplin. Sleater Kinney’s best album, One Beat is not the best they can do. Combine their more accomplished, fuller sound with more heart-wrenching, melodic classics like “Good Things” and “Dance Song ’97” and they’d certainly be the world’s best rock band rather than “merely” contenders.
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