Sleater-Kinney
The Hot Rock (Kill Rock Stars)
by Marc Hirsh
Sleater-Kinney
The Hot Rock (Kill Rock Stars)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Space City Rock, Fall 1999
The Hot Rock is exactly what the Go-Go's would have sounded like if they'd formed in 1992 instead of 1978. That's meant as a compliment. At their best, Sleater-Kinney explore messed-up relationships with a heartbreaking wit and a singleminded determination. They also demonstrate what would have happened if Jane Wiedlin had steadfastly refused to play sidekick to Belinda Carlisle and sang her own melody lines simultaneously with the lead.
Notice that I didn't say that Sleater-Kinney sounds like the Go-Go's. Sure, Corin Tucker's a dead ringer for Carlisle straining her voice and the entire attitude and lyrical focus is on the same sort of romantic fatalism that permeated Beauty and the Beat and Talk Show, but Sleater-Kinney has different sonic touchstones. Digging from riot grrl and avant-punk sources, The Hot Rock veers from straightforward powerchorded pop songs and chooses instead to toy with rhythm and melody. Combined with the intertwining vocals and lyrics, the music is disorienting but still anchored, barely, to normalcy, a nice echo of the record's lyrical themes.
The best songs, like "Burn, Don't Freeze," "God Is A Number" and "Living in Exile," start with spiky, angular guitar lines and jerky drums and then move into choruses that damn near float. It's like feeling a bumpy ride suddenly kick into gear at high speed. When it happens at precisely the same instant that the lyrics fully announce their intentions, as when the protagonist of "Memorize Your Lines" asks "Won't you tell me what are we fighting for?/Do you want me here, do you know for sure?," the effect is heartbreaking and sends chills down my spine every time.
Unfortunately, the keepers are just about evenly matched by the tracks that never quite make it. The uniformly excellent lyrics can't keep a few songs, such as "Banned From The End Of The World" and "A Quarter To Three," from meandering along musically and squelching the momentum that the words should have provided. And so ultimately, after countless listenings, The Hot Rock has slowly revealed itself to be one of a type of album that always embarrasses me to own up to: a good album whose few sterling tracks confuse me into thinking that it's a great one. I'm glad to have it, but it just barely misses permanent rotation.