"Little Rope" is Sleater-Kinney’s new album

     On 2021's Path Of Wellness, Sleater-Kinney confronted crises personal and public by doubling down on what they knew and using it as a springboard for exploration. And what Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein knew best was their dynamic as a duo, after drummer Janet Weiss’ much-publicized departure. “Let’s get lost, baby,” they harmonized, embracing the unknown in sync.

Even so, Sleater-Kinney’s 11th album presented them with unprecedented life challenges. During the making of Little Rope, Brownstein’s mother and stepfather were killed in a car crash. The album was already underway, but it's hard to listen to without sensing the seismic reverberations of that tragedy. The response is a fraught album that reaches out furiously for release, forming a push-pull of pressure and release around the band’s defining attributes: Tucker’s tumultuous vocals and Brownstein’s livid guitar.

On moody opener Hell, those guitars loom like heavy weather behind Tucker’s stormy delivery. Brownstein has always held her instrument high but it feels closer than ever here, an engine of comfort and discomfort. Needlessly Wild follows fast, finding traction between its bracingly infectious glam-rock riff and untamed lyrics. Say It Like You Mean It follows suggestively, peppering an exultant, almost Pat Benatar-ish pop melody with cluster bombs of spiky feeling. 

 Hunt You Down is openly “reeling", Brownstein’s choppy guitars matched for evocative impact by Tucker’s leaping vocals at the end of a line. Tucker does something similar at the close of the bullish Six Mistakes, singing “Is it all in my head?" with an intensity that says, no, the feelings are real. On Don’t Feel Right, a lyric about being “warped from grief” and a choked-out guitar line crush any doubts.

The path to wellness is choppy, then, and Sleater- Kinney are not here to ease the way with platitudes or neatly cathartic sentiments. John Congleton’s production never smooths out its kinks. The wiry post-punk of Small Finds harbours a feral take on love, biting and clawed. The album's second pop moment, the new wave-ish Crusader, couples a heroic melody with a conflicted core. Dress Yourself finds Tucker singing about “The wreck of you... on display", creases not ironed out for show, while molten closer Untidy Creature holds its “broken” feelings close. Frayed at the edges, defiantly alive, Little Rope is a record determined to cling on tightly to what it’s got, even when it leaves bum marks.