Sleater-Kinney
Karen Murphy*Sleater-Kinney are back to their old tricks, which means trying out some new tricks. The Pacific Northwest punks grabbed the world’s imagination with the 1996 riot-grrrl bombshell Call the Doctor, but ever since, they’ve refused to repeat themselves. Everything about their new album is outside their zone, starting with the title: Path of Wellness. It’s the first album they’ve made as a duo—the band is down to Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker, after a painful and public split with longtime drummer Janet Weiss.
On Path of Wellness, Sleater-Kinney sound as though Tucker and Brownstein figured there was no way to get back to normal, so they might as well get as weird as possible. No matter how long you’ve been a fan, you’ll hear plenty of stylistic stretches to startle you here. As they sing together in “Worry with You,” “Let’s get lost, baby, and take a wrong turn.”
But that’s always been a credo for this band. Back in the Nineties, fans got outraged when Dig Me Out didn’t sound like Call the Doctor, just as they got outraged when The Hot Rock didn’t resemble either of them. That restless spirit carried the threesome all the way through to their 2005 sign-off The Woods, where they blew up into a raging jam band. After a ten-year hiatus, they returned in 2015 with the triumphant comeback No Cities To Love. But their last album, The Center Won’t Hold, was their most divisive move ever—a slick synth-pop detour that sounded far more like their producer, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, with Weiss barely audible. The makeover wasn’t just polarizing for fans—it ripped the band apart. As Weiss said, “I just didn’t fit anymore.”
As songwriters, Tucker and Brownstein are in much stronger shape than on The Center Won’t Hold. “Path of Wellness” kicks off the album with gooey synths, Talking Heads/B-52s-style clink-clank percussion, and the holistic chant “I’m on a path of wellness.” Brownstein’s excellent “Method” is a moodily vulnerable plea, where she admits, “I’m singing about love, and it sounds like hate.” Like so much of the album, it’s processing grief, especially when she sings, “I’m late to the party / I’m late to the game / I’m late to your heart.”
“Shadow Town” is the first Sleater-Kinney song where it sounds like they’ve been listening to loads of Steely Dan (who would have thought?), ending with a groovy Fender Rhodes electric-piano solo. For good measure, there’s also a cowbell hook and a “Be My Baby” drum hook. The Steely influence runs surprisingly deep all over the album. At times, Brownstein’s guitar channels Denny Dias to the point where you expect her to break into “Your Gold Teeth II.”
“Tomorrow’s Grave” is a prog-metal grinder that takes a more serious stab at the heavy flourishes on The Woods, with Tucker intoning apocalyptic lyrics to match: “The sky was gone when at last I woke / Daylight trapped behind a deadly cloak.” “High in the Grass” starts off sounding nothing like Sleater-Kinney—more like Joan Baez replacing Ric Ocasek in the Cars—until Tucker finally unleashes her roof-raising wail for the chorus.
But for the most part, Tucker and Brownstein get down to brass tacks emotionally—they spend this album pleading for love and tenderness. They’re not going for rock anthems or fist-pumping power chords. (Without Weiss, there would be little point.) The finale “Have Mercy” is Tucker praying for human kindness to save the day, with an Eighties pop sheen in the mode of Pat Benatar circa “Shadows of the Night.” (It would have right into Pat’s Precious Time or Get Nervous.) On Path of Wellness, Sleater-Kinney sound like they’re regrouping after a period of loss and isolation, taking stock of what remains. And in 2021, they’re not the only ones.
ALBUM REVIEWS
Victoria Canal’s debut album feels deeply. ‘Slowly, It Dawns’ sits with the emotions you stumble upon in your mid-20s, as the Spanish-American, London-based artist told NME in her Cover interview. Whether it’s realising “I’m never gonna have everything figured out”, or the so-called “quarter-life crisis”, Canal’s impressive (and Ivor Novello Award-winning) songwriting looks to her past to reflect on the realities of life: the idea that multiple things can be true at once.
Take the sweet, sharp indie-pop of ‘June Baby’, co-written with The 1975’s Ross MacDonald. Depicting the dizzy rollercoaster of summer romance, Canal candidly draws upon contrary emotions, reflecting on heart-racing early interactions (“Trying my best to/Savour your compliments”) and blurry confusion (“You saw me naked/Totally freaking out”). The brutally self-aware ‘Talk’, meanwhile, reflects on the fizzing honeymoon phase of early relationships when you ignore the red flags you feel in your gut (“Hold your gaze/Hoping that it doesn’t break”). It’s set over soft-rock instrumentals that recall alt-pop heroes like Beabadoobee or Clairo.
On early EPs, 2022’s ‘Elegy’ and 2023’s ‘WELL WELL’, Canal spun stories over lilting piano and stripped-back instrumentals. Sonically, ‘Slowly, It Dawns’ builds upon this existing world: the sweltering ‘Cake’, which depicts late-night debauchery (“Fuck the cake!/Let’s go straight to the vodka”) is filled with sticky basslines and woozy layered vocals, its second verse dusted in UKG beats. ‘California Sober’ is a sultry cut built around salsa rhythms and pulsing synths, while ‘15%’ could have been pulled straight from a noughties romcom with its swooning production, its harmonious melodies and instrumental arrangement evoking KT Tunstall.
There are moments of subdued beauty throughout. The record finishes with the one-two punch of ‘Black Swan’ and its sibling track ‘Swan Song’. The two tracks showcase the power in Canal’s songwriting; the former won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically last year, while the latter is a powerful musing on the fragility of life and forgiveness.
‘Swan Song’ concludes with the poignant question: “Who knows how long we’ve got?/As long as I am breathing, I know it’s not too late to love.” It’s both full of grief and hope, the two knotty emotions filling each other’s gaps in a moving exploration of loss. This duality is a powerful tool in ‘Slowly, It Dawns’: it’s compelling and moving songwriting that manages to depict all of life’s complexities, Canal spinning raw emotion into beautifully crafted songs.
