Sleater-Kinney-- The Hot Rock

(Kill Rock Stars 321)

When you get right down to it, the difference between the new S-K album and the last two is the difference between your lover screaming "Stop it! Stop it!" at you and that same lover calmly explaining to you, "This has got to stop." At that point in the relationship where, if you start working, you

might have a life together. That point where you have to figure out if that's

what you want, if you're strong enough.

This is an album of love songs, first off. Don't let that make you think

this album is weeny in any way. Sure it isn't the gut-shot that the last two

were: there's moments here that sound like deep cuts from a John Hughes soundtrack ("A Quarter to Three" springs to mind, with a positively bouncy guitar line and a melodica fade-out). Which isn't to say that they don't rock out and go crazy. They just don't have to do it all the time anymore. Yeah, I mean it rocks and all, but there's restraint. There are tendernesses in the punks.

Come to think of it, all the anger in this album comes from tenderness. The notes chime and urge rather than demand a call to arms, and most every song is a dialogue, not between two people, but between two voices in one head. On the best songs here, there's always a pretty delicate counterpoint going on, two guitar lines playing off each other, two vocals second guessing. One of them wants to go. And one wants to stay. So why is it better than all the love songs you hear in the Top 40? The easy answer is that there's doubt spoken cleanly and honestly, at the time when there

isn't gauze over the lens.

It's a brittle album, and a fragile one. Remember, though, that there's always a hard edge to brittle. Remember the last time you nearly broke up with someone. No-one is ever gonna play any of these songs at their weddings, but these are (hopefully) our wedding songs. The ones we take with us to our weddings, in our heads.

--T. Magill