7 / 10
Despite taunting list-making indie boys with 'You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun', Sleater-Kinney's reputation as dry feministas still precedes them like a fun-squashing elephant. There's nothing like perpetuating a stereotype by repeating it but when they're creating songs as febrile and intelligent as 'Step Aside' and 'Oh!', it's hard to understand why they're not as huge as an all-Strokes version of 'Big Brother'. Few bands could explore motherhood and terrorism without making you want to shoot them: Corin Tucker's electric-shock voice and the adrenal guitars make them as essential pop topics as schoolyard crushes and backstreet drugs.
On 'Light-Rail Coyote', they use a local news story about a feral animal boarding the airport train: it's the perfect metaphor. In between the domestic, the commercial and the worldly, Sleater-Kinney keep it wild.
Victoria Segal
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