EW review: Venture into 'The Woods'
Sleater-Kinney's latest effort is hardest, heaviest yet
By David Browne
Entertainment Weekly
(Entertainment Weekly) -- When last we heard from Sleater-Kinney, on 2002's "One Beat," one of indie rock's most musically and politically strident bands was as rattled as we were by 9/11.
When they weren't mourning the dearth of modern protest songs, they were gazing up worriedly at the sky.
On "The Woods," they're no less angry or unnerved. ''The Red and the Blue now/It's Truth against Truth,'' rages Corin Tucker in ''Wilderness,'' her take on postelection fallout, while the band's other guitarist and singer, Carrie Brownstein, sneers at pop's embrace of retro culture in ''Entertain'': ''You're such a bore, 1984.''
Lyrics aside, "The Woods" is, thankfully, not just another in a string of samey Sleater-Kinney albums. Ten years after the release of their debut, the trio qualify as alt-rock old-timers. But here's the anniversary twist: They've taken a few pointers from, of all people, classic-rock dinosaurs.
"The Woods" presents a trio unafraid to ditch all that is atonal (which was getting stale anyway) and indulge in labyrinthine guitars, and weave in and out of melodies like a jam band; in ''Jumpers'' (a spooky ode to Golden Gate Bridge suicide leapers), they combine their voices in sweet coffeehouse harmony. Janet Weiss attacks her kit as if she'd been listening only to Keith Moon for the last three years. All that's missing, really, is a drum solo.
While it's surprising to hear Sleater-Kinney act so traditional, it's more shocking how well such conventions suit them. "The Woods" is their hardest and heaviest, yet most varied, album.
One minute they're locking into the pithy riff of ''Rollercoaster,'' an indie-rock "9 1/2 Weeks" that turns unexpectedly wistful; on the next track, ''Steep Air,'' they're slowing down to a glum rumble. Which, in turn, leads into the 11 churning minutes of ''Let's Call It Love,'' where passion becomes a ferocious wrestling match and Tucker makes a case for the advantages of maturity (''A woman is not a girl/I could show you a thing or two,'' she informs the object of her desire).
Brownstein's sardonic delivery also helps balance out the witchy-woman wail of Tucker, who had become indie's own Mariah Carey in the sandblaster-pipes department.
These days, plenty of bands aim to revive the sound and spirit of '60s rabble-rousers. Sleater-Kinney want to do that, too, yet they do it far more subtly than by simply stealing old chord changes. With their lefty politics, up-against-the-wall anthems and steely female voices, they're now picking up where pre-Starship Jefferson Airplane left off.
Then as now, the center of American life may not be holding, to paraphrase Joan Didion by way of Yeats. But Sleater-Kinney have never sounded so centered, nor so potent.
EW Grade: A-
'Be,' Common
Reviewed by Raymond Fiore
Rap ambition is so often manifested by bloated and mediocre double-disc ''events'' that "Be," Common's 11-track gem, might seem positively meek by comparison. Oh, but how the hip-hop hit-erati could learn from his example: The Chicago MC's sixth CD is 43 minutes bursting with street-smart, warmhearted (but not corny) goodness.
Common's never released a subpar effort, so his capacity to create compelling work is hardly surprising. However, "Be's" leanness (missing from 2002's intriguing yet overreaching "Electric Circus") signals awesome growth even without pushing sonic boundaries.
And we can partly credit fellow Chi-town native and this year's Grammy golden boy Kanye West (who's releasing the disc through his own Universal imprint and oversees all but two of the cuts) for Common's renewed focus: The marriage of the MC's conscious rhymes to West's gritty, boho-inflected production boasts more organic freshness than a Whole Foods Market.
Indeed, with the exception of the soggy, sunny-cliched ''Love Is...,'' Be achieves a jazzy, Native Tongues-like complexity that still resonates on ghetto corners. Whether cleverly narrating a courtroom drama on ''Testify,'' glorifying hood dwellers on the Coltrane-feeling reverie ''Real People,'' or celebrating monogamy on the irresistible, D.J. Rogers-sampling ''Faithful,'' Common favors accessibility over abstract experimentation.
And who cares if "Be" isn't groundbreaking? As West's label name promises, this is simply good music.
EW Grade: A-
'Out of Exile,' Audioslave
Reviewed by David Browne
On their unexpectedly strapping debut, Audioslave took more cues from Soundgarden than Rage Against the Machine, the bands in which their members once served.
The same is true of that CD's successor: "Out of Exile's" opening tracks, ''Your Time Has Come'' and the title song, ride the wild alt-rock beast as if they were Superunknown outtakes.
But despite the enduring force of Chris Cornell's lungs and looser moments like ''Doesn't Remind Me,'' the album ends up in the same spinning-wheels muck that often bogged down Soundgarden. Nineties nostalgia has its limits.
EW Grade: C+
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