They came back roaring. The greatest punk band of the late-’90s and early-’00s didn’t have to make any music; they could’ve toured for years on past glories and Portlandia recognition. Instead, they gave us 10 songs of feverish, desperate urgency. Musically, they went full-bore, keeping the tangled intensity of their last album, the psych-rock experiment The Woods, but streamlining those sounds into power-pop anthems with strangled-robot guitar effects. And once again, they’re completely locked-in with one another, generating riffs and grooves with the sort of chemistry few bands throughout history can match. It’s like they never left. It’s beautiful.
As if Sleater-Kinney’s grad return and triumphant “No Cities To Love” weren’t enough in 2015, the riot grrrl group teamed up with the creators of the Fox animated series Bob’s Burgers for “A New Wave.” The video shows the band playing this song in 13-year-old Tina Belcher’s bedroom. Everyone is jumping up and down, which, yeah, is pretty much was Sleater-Kinney makes you want to do.
Sleater Kinney became one of the best and most important bands of the era by growing up and growing out of the scene that spawned them.
Initially inspired by the riot-grrrl movement of the early ’90s, the all-female Olympia, Washington.-based trio quickly found its own voice within that often-stagnate scene,
By the time of their third album, Dig Me Out, in 1997, Sleater-Kinney had nailed down everything that made them so vital over the next decade: Corin Tucker’s wailing howl, her stabbing musical interplay with co-singer and guitarist Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss’ positively rhythmic drumming.
Their punk-influenced social and political beliefs were in place early, but as they matured as artists, they evolved to include sharp commentary on their feminism, the music around them and their crumbling relationships. They went deeper and with more honest intensity than most of their peers. And they weren’t afraid to musically grow up, either. They became more melodic over time, without ever sacrificing the indie-rock foundations that helped shape them.
Plus, the way they went out, and came back, went against the way these things were usually done. Their great 2005 album, The Woods, was designed to be a farewell, but a decade later they returned with an even better comeback record, No Cities to Love.
“This live album, consisting mostly of late-career highlights, emphasizes what Sleater-Kinney does best: playing not just with urgent feeling, but in service of immense meaning. “Live in Paris” captures one of the greatest American rock bands at the top of their game.
Live in Paris is the first official record of Sleater-Kinney’s famously blistering stage performance. The thirteen track album, which features Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, Janet Weiss, and touring member KatieHarkin, was captured on March 20th, 2015 at the Paris’s historic La Cigale venue, during the band’s sold-out, international tour in support of their acclaimed eighth album, 2015’s “No Cities to Love”.
Live in Paris includes songs from nearly every Sleater-Kinney album, including No Cities to Love, The Woods, One Beat, The Hot Rock, Dig Me Out, and Call the Doctor. The recording was mixed by John Goodmanson at Avast and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound.
Sleater-Kinney started 2015 by returning to the road to support “No Cities to Love,” its first album in a decade, and ended the year with a unique live challenge: a run of five consecutive shows in New York, each in a different space. The band’s drummer, Janet Weiss, described it as a “shrinking tour” — the Portland-based trio started big, with the Kings Theater in Flatbush, Brooklyn (capacity: nearly 4,000, where most fans had assigned seats) and played a subsequently smaller stage every night until it reached the recently revamped Market Hotel in Bushwick (capacity: approximately 300, where attendees were packed shoulder to shoulder, crammed into window frames and wrapped around pillars).
In the background you might hear, “Oh my God! This is so awesome!” It’s the truth. Such honest words were yelled repeatedly at New York’s Terminal 5 , when Fred Armisen (Ms. Brownstein’s co-star on “Portlandia”) joined on vocals and smacked his cowbell helped surprise Sleater-Kinney fans with this seven-minute to the B52’s “Rock Lobster” cover. The band introduced a cover song it had played only once before, in 1997: the B-52’s playful surf-rock party jam “It’s just the most fun song,” Weiss said. She added that the group practiced it two or three times at sound check: “Everybody showed up very prepared and I was impressed with all of us for studying and being ready. “Improvising is always more exciting when the crowd is into it and you don’t feel like you’re in a fishbowl. When you feel like you’re with the crowd, it’s easier to go out on the ledge.”
2015 was a massive year for Sleater-Kinney: They released their first album in a decade, “No Cities to Love”, bowled critics over with it, toured behind it all over the world and wrapped it up with a five-night string of shows in New York. Starting at the Kings Theatre and ending at the newly re-opened Market Hotel, the Olympia punk trio defended their newly christend title of America’s Best Punk Band Ever as they rocked out at venues that just increased in intimacy earlier this week. Weiss, who assembles the group’s set lists, had a host of variables to consider: How the sound would reverberate in the various-sized rooms; if fans would return on multiple nights and wish to hear different picks; the emotional and physical demands on the band’s singers; how the musicians could feed off the energy of the crowd.
Sleater-Kinney might, complete with a flailing Fred Armisen cameo and one especially heartwarming capture of Janet Weiss at her kit with the M Train rolling behind her in the distance, above.
Near the end of the first show in the cavernous Kings Theater, the band — which also includes Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker on vocals and guitars, and the touring guitarist and keyboardist Katie Harkin made an on-the-fly call to cut from the set the sprawling “Let’s Call It Love,” from the 2005 album “The Woods.”
Weiss said the band was exhausted by the time it hit the stage, after spending the day at “The Late Show WithStephen Colbert” repeatedly playing the “No Cities to Love” track “Bury Our Friends” for broadcast that night. “Everything felt like, really scrappy and sort of wild, slightly out of control,” Weiss said. “It’s a smaller, more live-sounding stage, so it was loud and super raw sounding.”
“Little Babies,” from their 1997 album, “Dig Me Out,” made its sole appearance of the run that night: “Songs like ‘You’re No Rock n’ Roll Fun’ and ‘Step Aside’ or ‘Little Babies,’ we like those songs, but in the context of this tour it felt a little campy and out of place,” Weiss said. “So those didn’t surface as much as some of the more tough songs.”
Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love
The trio still snap and crackle on their first set since 2005. No Cities might sound chaotic at first, but each element Corin Tucker’s sweet snarl, Janet Weiss’ rugged beats, Carrie Brownstein’s noisy solos—is exactly in its right place. Of course Sleater-Kinney was going to reunite—everybody reunites these days—but
Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss were stealthy about it: the trio didn’t let slip that they had been working on their first album in 10 years until it was already finished.
And what an album! The interplay between Brownstein and Tucker has rarely been tighter or more ferocious, their voices and guitars twisting, turning and intertwining over explosive drumming from Weiss on songs that are as tuneful as they are hard-hitting. Sleater-Kinney had built an enviable catalog before dissolving in 2006; No Cities to Love is a staggering return that ranks among their best work.
Sleater Kinney hiatus has come to an end. The Olympia, Washington trio has re-formed and recorded a powerful new song about perseverance, “Bury Our Friends,” that lives up to its punk and indie rock pasts with big, slithering riffs and a ringing, anthemic chorus. The song appears on a seven-inch single that comes with the group’s lavish, career-spanning vinyl box set “Start Together”, which also includes a 44-page booklet containing never-before-seen photos. the reunited trio will release their new LP “No Cities to Love”, a 10-track studio album featuring “Bury Your Friends,” on January 20th through Sub Pop Records. The album was secretly recorded at San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone Recordings earlier this year, with additional sessions taking place at Portland’s Kung Fu Bakery Recording Studio and Seattle’s Electrokitty. Producer John Goodmanson, who worked on four Sleater-Kinney albums, also returned to the fold .
Sleater-Kinney announcing a surprise reunion by way of releasing the amazing new song “Bury Our Friends.” Then the second song the trio has shared from their forthcoming reunion album “No Cities To Love” is called “Surface Envy,” If anything, this is an even better Sleater-Kinney song than “Bury Our Friends”: A fired-up, full-bodied howler powered by righteous fury and beautifully tangled riffage. The world does not deserve to hear Corin Tucker in roaring-lion form like this, but we’re getting it anyway. The band premiered “Surface Envy” recently but they have no other plans to collaborate beyond next year. Wrote Janet Weiss, “We are definitely living in the moment and enjoying being together making music again. We all have other projects as well and realize our time in the band is valuable. Not taking SK for granted, and making this album as good as possible works for us this time around. So no plans for the distant future.
Sleater-Kinney are an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band’s lineup features Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar), Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), and Janet Weiss (drums). Sleater-Kinney is a key part of the riot grrrl and indie rock scenes in the Pacific Northwest.The band is also known for its feminist and left-leaning politics.
The band released 7 studio albums between 1994 and 2005: Sleater-Kinney (1995), Call the Doctor (1996), Dig Me Out (1997), The Hot Rock (1999), All Hands on the Bad One (2000), One Beat (2002) and The Woods (2005), before announcing hiatus in 2006 and devoting to solo projects. They reunited in 2014 and released “No Cities to Love” on January 20th, 2015.
Renowned critics Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau have each praised Sleater-Kinney as one of the essential rock groups of the late 1990s/early 2000s.
Sleater-Kinney dropped a bomb on the universe, announcing a surprise reunion by way of releasing the amazing new song “Bury Our Friends.” The second song the trio has shared song from their forthcoming reunion album “No Cities To Love” is called “Surface Envy,” If anything, this is an even better Sleater-Kinney “Bury Our Friends”: A fired-up, full-bodied howler powered by righteous fury and beautifully tangled riffage. The world does not deserve to hear Corin Tucker in roaring-lion form like this,
So the band Sleater Kinney is back! After an indefinite hiatus, some recent teases and a few major hints, the band announced that Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss will release the new album, “No Cities to Love,” on Jan. 20th 2015,via Sub Pop. Sleater-Kinney will also go on an American 13-date tour in 2015, starting in their home state, Washington. lets hope they make it to the UK soon.
The first single, “Bury Our Friends,” is already out with a lyric video featuring Miranda July It lives up to Sleater-Kinney’s legacy of hard guitar riffs and lyrics you just want to chant. The song appears on a new compilation “StartTogether,” the band’s career-spanning vinyl box set, which contains a 44-page booklet of photos.
The band premiered “Surface Envy” at the end of a Reddit AMA, during which they provided some information about their 2015 reunion tour. For one thing, they have no plans to collaborate beyond next year. Wrote Janet Weiss, “We are definitely living in the moment and enjoying being together making music again. We all have other projects as well and realize our time in the band is valuable. Not taking SK for granted, and making this album as good as possible works for us this time around. So no plans for the distant future – we’ll make the next few months as amazing as they can possibly be!” They also revealed that Weiss is the “setlist guru” and that we shouldn’t expect to hear any rarities because, per Weiss, “Those might have been weeded out years ago for a reason!” The band also hinted that fans should bring them chocolate chip cookies on tour and revealed that Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia co-star Fred Armisen has volunteered to roadie for the band.
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The Fat Angel Sings 