Witness the fitness
In riot-strewn post-Trump America, Tucker and Brownstein get back to basics and count the cost. By Stevie Chick.
Sleater-Kinney ★★★★
Path Of Wellness MOM + POP. CD/DL/LP
SLEATER-KINNEY’S last salvo, The Center Won’t Hold, was a ‘big’ album in every sense. Their response to the darkness heralded by Trump’s presidency, its theme was indicated by the apocalyptic title, and made explicit by tracks like Broken and Bad Dance, measuring the damage done and forging paths of resistance. The production – by Annie Clark, AKA St. Vincent – finessed their punk-born squall into something succinct, boldly augmenting their palette with electronic elements. While this shift was seismic enough to shake loose long-time drummer Janet Weiss, the experiment itself was a success.
By comparison, Path Of Wellness is less of a grand statement, more intimate and inwardlooking. Self-produced, the album returns to Sleater-Kinney’s bare elements: tangled, scorching guitar lines, and two singers of distinct but complementary passions. It’s no backwards-step, nor a repudiation of Clark’s (r)evolutionary strokes – the synths might have retreated, but Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker’s pop sensibility is played firmly to the fore. And Path Of Wellness contains fine pop songs: the sly, erotic vibe of High In The Grass, the nervy, ecstatic strut of Brownstein’s Worry With You. Sleater-Kinney have always thrived in that space where their classic songwriting impulses meet the inflamed pell-mell of their punk rock. This friction peaks on Shadow Town, its claustrophobic mood finding release in a nagging refrain and Tucker’s howl, the once-untrammelled fury of her vocals now focused into something powerful and moving.
The album eschews Center…’s anthemic polemic in favour of subtly effective messages. Complex Female Characters is brilliant, a sophisticated, surgical deconstruction of toxic male gaze, Brownstein’s subject claiming he likes “complex female characters/But I want my women to go down easy” and warning at the song’s end “you can’t escape my imagination”, revealing the predator dressed as ally. Meanwhile, the pointedly anti-triumphant vibe that pervades the set finds its keenest expression in closer Bring Mercy. It’s a smouldering response to the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests in their hometown of Portland, the violent confrontations between protestors, police and counter-protestors reflecting an America riven by division, guilt and denial.
The message of the chorus (“Bring mercy/ Bring love”) is as heartfelt as it is worthy, but the real truth of the song lies in the nuances arising in its verses, Tucker asking “How do you put out fires/When they’re burning up your sleeves?” If The Center Won’t Hold was Sleater-Kinney sounding the alarm as the house caught fire, Path Of Wellness finds them confronting the emotional toll of the crisis, gazing at the wreckage and wondering how to rebuild, how to make good. There are no easy answers, but the questions it asks, the disquiet it pays witness to, make for a deep, powerful and satisfying album.