Justin Jacobs

Sometimes when I jump into a new book, film, or album I don’t do the reading. When I opened my Spotify app this morning I was delighted to find that Sleater-Kinney had a new album out called Little Rope. I saw they had been doing press for a new project for awhile, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to listen to the singles or read any previews. I got to jump in blind.

When lead singer Corin Tucker opened the album by singing, “Hell don’t have no worries, Hell don’t have no past,” it certainly got my attention. The song “Hell” opens Little Rope as a warning, it’s eerie synthesizers building a wall of tension that eventually get’s obliterated by Carrie Brownstein’s guitar. When I found out that Brownstein’s mother and stepfather passed away in a car accident in Italy during the making of this record, everything snapped into context. You can feel the mourning in songs like “Don’t Feel Right” and “Hell.” Lyrics like:

I get up, make a list
What I’ll do once I’m fixed
Read more poems, ditch half my meds
Dress my age, call back my friends

from “Don’t Feel Right” capture what it is to live with the kind grief that suffocates when we experience loss. Brownstein and Tucker never take time to feel sorry for themselves on the album. You can feel the anguish in the songs, they are certainly dipping into a reservoir of pain, but Sleater-Kinney’s brand of power pop rock has always had the feeling of resoluteness. You get the picture of Carrie and Corin leaning on each other, battered like a couple of aging boxers, but still capable of knocking anyone on their ass.

At just over 34 minutes this another tight, well-made record from a band that has been consistently great for 30 years now. I still miss the Janet Weiss, their former drummer, who is one of the best to ever do it. If there’s anything this album is lacking it’s bit of punch from the drums. For everything that has happened in all their time together, Brownstein and Tucker still have such incredible chemistry. From the moment I first listened to Dig Me Out, it was the back-and-forth between the Corin and Brownstein that gave them such an undeniable presence. Corin’s vocals can still raise the hair on the back of my neck, her wailing at the end of “Untidy Creature” will give you chills, and the grooves on songs like “Dress Yourself” and “Say It Like You Mean It” are just killer. 

I think this is their best album since 2015’s No Cities to Love, it packs an emotional punch, and has the feeling of a band that has spent a lot of time trying to find meaning in their lives and their work. As I’m taking in Little Rope I can’t help but think about the Foo Fighters 2023 album, But Here We Are and how inspired Dave Grohl seemed to be in the wake of Taylor Hawkins death. We live with these bands for so long, and over time it gets easy to take them for granted, to think we’ve heard everything they have to say. I don’t doubt that tragedy inspired Sleater-Kinney to make the best album they could in the moment, but these songs are not asking for pity, they are an unbridled statement of resilience. Corin sings on “Untidy Creatures:”

Looking neat like a problem to solve
Like an untidy creature that you can’t push around
You built a cage but your measurement’s wrong
So I’ll find a way and I’ll pick your lock

I came away from listening to Little Rope with a newfound love for Sleater-Kinney. Time and loss may have eroded the sharp corners of the band, but what’s left feels sturdier, strong enough to withstand any storm.