The Woods

Release Date: May 24, 2005

Listen carefully: If you only have enough money set aside to purchase one album released this year, you’d better make damn sure it’s Sleater-Kinney’s The Woods.

Now, why should you spend your hard-earned dough on an album from a band featuring three girls that are [somewhat unfortunately] notorious for their Bikini Kill comparisons, a band that even I hadn’t even heard much from until a month ago? Well, I’ll tell you why, and I’ll even quote what the rugged tattooed chick behind the counter at Amoeba Records said when she rang me up on Saturday: “This is a great record,” she said in a slow, hippie drawl, showing me the CD as though I wasn’t the one who’d just handed it to her. “I didn’t expect to like it, but it surprised me ‘cause it really rocks.” She turned and showed it to the girl at the next register. “Isn’t this a great album?” The other girl nodded in agreement, looking at me as though she didn’t believe that I even knew who Sleater-Kinney was.

The $14 that I forked over that day for a record by a band that I didn’t really know was a big deal for me, especially considering I barely had the $14 to fork over. But for some bizarre reason, a few weeks ago I looked up the gals of Sleater-Kinney on Rhapsody and noticed they’d just released a new record. I played it. I was shocked. I was entranced. I went out and purchased the album the next time I was near Amoeba. And now I can’t stop listening to it.

Janet Weiss, Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker

And now, let’s take a trip through The Woods. The album opener, “The Fox”, probably has the most in common with their earlier records: it’s very loud and messy, with Janet flaring on the drums like any good punk skin-banger. Corin has her most creative vocal work in this song as she goes from belting to wailing to full-on screaming, the kind that makes you go, “oh please don’t do that to your pretty voice!”

But don’t be misled by the madness of “The Fox”. For the very next song, “Wilderness”, starts off with the girls doing their spunky guitar duet that they’re known for, Carrie’s voice fluttering underneath for a few lines, just before Janet and Corin take over. How Corin manages to sing that loud, that confidently, that perfectly beautiful absolutely amazes me. Fortunately, “Wilderness”—and most of this record—displays the strength of the girl’s voice that she’d only hinted at before. But while you’re so busy gawking at Corin’s voice, in comes this guitar... for what my opinion is worth, Carrie Brownstein is The Best Female Guitarist playing right now. Yes, I believe she’s better than PJ Harvey, and that means a lot coming from a major Polly-enthusiast.

“What’s Mine Is Yours”, one of my favorites, is a fun, “bounce around the living room” song, thanks to the ping-pong guitar work and Janet’s pounding. I really like how the girls work their vocals together. Corin’s powerful voice fills out the sound so well, and then Carrie breaks it up with her much faster and creative vocal work, Corin belting in the background. “What’s Mine Is Yours” is the first of two songs featuring the most psychedelic solo guitar work that anyone is doing right now. Carrie rips through this song Hendrix-style, slowing the song into a 1-2 pulse as Corin brings in her tuned-down guitar and Janet enters with a controlled beat, only to then flare away faster than you can keep up on your air-drums.

The gals performed “Jumper” on The Late Show with David Letterman last week, and while someone watching the performance may easily think of Sleater-Kinney as being just another lame indie band, at 33 seconds into the song when the guitars and the vocal duet are taken away just long enough for Janet to pound her way in, making your heart beat along with the drums, that person watching who made assumptions too early will have their asses handed to them on a silver platter. When I’m listening to this CD in the car—VERY LOUDLY, mind you—I can barely make it though the rest of the album due to the number of times I start this song over. And over. And over. And over again, if only to hear that drum break and Corin’s voice belting away over Carrie’s very cool riff. This song will have an impact on you... after hearing this song even David Letterman called the gals “avant-garde”. Pretty damn good for a song about jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Modern Girl” is a cute little ditty that breaks up the hard-rock fest and gives you a bit of a breather. It’s mostly Carrie’s voice and guitar, until Janet slams in a third of the way into the song. The lyrics are fun and a little cryptic... it’s a good sing-along song, but also a good look into their ability to stretch their songwriting styles.

This is a good a time as any to let you know my opinions of Janet Weiss. Give the girl a few years (because I’m convinced she’s only going to get even better) and Janet will most likely find a comfortable spot on my list of favorite drummers of all time. Just to give you an idea, the top four slots on the list are reserved for (in no particular order) John Bonham, Dave Grohl, Matt Chamberlain and Ringo Star. I’ve got a major thing for drummers, but until now I hadn’t found a female drummer I could get excited about. Janet is not only (in my opinion) the best female drummer EVER, but she’s one of my favorite drummers PERIOD, simply for skill, style and sheer power. Not only is she good, but she’s interesting. She can completely twist a song around right in the middle of it by changing her rhythm. She exhibits amazing control and restraint in her arrangements, but it’s her ability to add intricate detail that makes you wonder who the hell taught her to bang those things like that; she’s fast, she’s loud, she’s mean, and she’s a hell of a lot of fun. Janet’s never behind a song just as the beat-keeper; she leads the music completely. That said, go listen to “Entertain” and you know what I’m talking about. By the way, that's Carrie singing about the current state of the entertainment industry -- major props to her for that.

The next one is a good song to talk about lyrics. “Steep Air” is one of the darker songs on the album. The girls seem to root most of their lyrical content in politics and social issues, and “Steep Air” is a great example of that. “I’m tired of waiting on a ship that won’t leave shore / the water’s bloody with the one who came before / hey, she made you ay it, yeah they’ll make you say it / yeah, you know you said it a lot / You never stay for, now you’ve gotta pray for / something better than what you’ve got.” They’re stretching the songwriting boundaries here, with two verses and a bridge, and because of the way they use the quiet-loud-layered-quiet-loud technique—or rather, the technique of changing sonic density and volume throughout a song—you don’t even realize that the chorus is missing. But the chorus isn’t missing, and that’s the whole point. Overall, “Steep Air” is one of my favorites from the album.

Now, “Let’s Call It Love”... good lord. The song clocks in at a whopping 11 minutes. And if you count the fact that the song moves straight into “Night Light” without so much as a pause, you can add another 3:40 to that. They’re jamming for nearly 15 minutes straight, with each of them in top form for the entire exhausting length. Corin sings her loudest in the highest pitch here, mostly just to be able to be heard over Janet’s pounding and Carrie’s over-drive. Corin is seriously screaming, never hesitating: “Slow moves and dirty tricks / want it like you never have / Timing and tiger strength / strategy will put you past / Show me your darkest side / and you better be my bloody match.”

But here’s the jaw-dropping part: halfway into the 11 minutes of “Let’s Call It Love”, the trio takes to completely improvising the next 5 minutes. You’d seriously thing Hendrix or Page somehow found their way into a Sleater-Kinney album. It sounds messy at first, as an improv should, but somehow Janet manages to tie together both Carrie’s and Corin’s guitars into something more stable, changing the rhythm where it should be changed, banging on the cymbals and then ignoring them completely. No kidding, this is the closest thing to the instrumental part of “Whole Lotta Love” that I’ve ever heard, and no that isn’t a bad thing. And it not like they’re stealing from the Zeps, either. This is the punk rock equivalent of a psychedelic epic. And just when you think all hell has broken loose and they’re about to smash their guitars on the ground, this happens:

“Night Light” happens. The guitars fade away a bit and in comes Janet with a composed and very groovy beat, there’s the sparse guitar “wham... wham... wham... wham” of power chords in over-drive from Corin, and there’s Carrie with a fluttering riff making the song as eerie as is it hard-hitting. And after the first verse, there goes Corin belting “How do you do it / this bitter and bloody world / keep it together and shine for your family / how do you do it / with visions of worst to come / live in the present / and spin off the rays of the sun.” Powerful vocals, amazing riffs, kick-ass drum work. For what it’s worth, if “The Fox” was a representation of their earlier work, I would certainly not mind if “Night Light” as the album closer is a sneak-peek of what’s to come from the gals of Sleater-Kinney. Best rock song I’ve heard released this year. Period.

In fact, The Woods is one of the best rock albums I’ve heard in ages. Exclamation point.