Sleater-Kinney are back with the same fire that led the riot grrrl movement
Riot grrrl torchbearers Sleater-Kinney have regrouped, and they've still got plenty to say
It's barely past 10am, and Sleater-Kinney are already on the offensive. "What do you mean by 'complacent'?" asks drummer Janet Weiss, responding to a question that insinuates the reunited punk rock group appear more comfortable today than they did in the early 1990s.
Let's back up. There is, to be sure, nothing that sounds remotely content on No Cities to Love, the trio's first album in a decade. It's aggressive in a way that can frighten off the uninitiated: vocals are on high alert, guitar riffs blare with the urgency of a weather-alert system and rhythms don't allow for time to catch one's breath.
The group from the US Pacific Northwest were always more than just a band. As leaders of the riot grrrl movement, they were up against a male-dominated grunge-rock era. So it's no real surprise that the group members, now all in their 40s, resist the implication that they're older, wiser and simply having more fun this time around.
"It's a bit of a cliché that you get older and put on your fuzzy slippers and cuddle up by the fire with the cat on your lap," Weiss says.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's not my life. Outside of this band, there are a lot of struggles to get music heard and to make music that's vital. That continues. The reasons we come back … are because there are things we can say in this band, and there are ways to say it that feel urgent. There's an urgency when we say things.