Sleater-Kinney
All Hands On The Bad One
(Matador)
There's rarely been a worse time in rock to own breasts, now that
the frat boy is king and "show us your tits" routinely echoes 'round
gigs. It starts off ignorable, with the snigger-snigger inanity of
The Bloodhound Gang album. It gets ugly at Woodstock, where Korn
are the hip new soundtrack to gang rape. And at Bowlie, Sleater-Kinney -
three women who won't wear Hello Kitty rucksacks - are pilloried as
'ladymen' on the noticeboard. At Bowlie. What's the world coming to?
Like three Sigourney Weavers battling slavering, maleficent aliens,
Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss are perfect sweat-slick
action heroes for these brutalist times. "You're no rock'n'roll fun",
they taunt, at once satirising their dour image, the inability of
serious boy artists to loosen up, and unleashing a great pop single
into the fray. It's not the sound of doughty harridans shrieking
patriarchy down, as their detractors would tediously have it. It's a
punk rock band having the time of their lives. It's victory through
joy and cranked-up amps.
Sleater-Kinney's collective arsenal remains stocked with the same
flints as their past four salvoes against a flaccid, hateful rock
culture. There's words and guitar. But this backlash to the New
Boorishness has a novel cunning behind it; a laser-guided wit and
melodic charge.
So while the two-minute punk tsunamis get more pointed - 'Ironclad'
and 'The Professional' going hell-for-noo-wave-leather - songs like
'Ballad Of A Ladyman' (inspired by the Bowlie incident) linger and
cajole. Corin's voice, too, has taken on ancillary powers: a spell in
side-project Cadallaca has freed up new roles for her tonsils. So she's
Siouxsie on 'Youth Decay', a sassy Francophile lover on 'Milkshake n'
Honey' and all West Coast beach babe on the immensely pretty 'Leave You
Behind'. It's girl-positive stuff, yes; with songs like 'Male Model',
'#1 Must-Have' and '...Ladyman' tackling treacherous gender gaps and
rock double-standards ("I've been crawling up so long on your stairway
to heaven/And now I no longer believe that I wanna get in", warbles
Corin). But 'All Hands On The Bad One' is rock'n'roll fun; its urgent
rhythms and stealthy tunes laying glittery tripwire around the enemy
camp.
Hooray, then, for boobies. 8/10
--
gender is just an excuse, relationship shouldn't just be an excuse,
love is often an excuse, although sometimes these excuses are all
we have to hold onto,
death is the reason and living is the celebration
- Beth Orton
--
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