Sleater- Kinney

The new Sleater-Kinney album “all but jettisons Sleater-Kinney’s longtime musical identity,” said Jon Pareles in

The New York Times. Known for making “smart, knotty,” guitardriven riot-grrrl rock, bandmates Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss brought in St. Vincent as a producer to help manage a pivot toward synth pop. “Unfortunately, most of the time it’s a wrong turn.” Four years after the celebrated trio ended a decade-long hiatus with the brash but purposeful No Cities to Love, and weeks before this record’s release, the hardhitting Weiss quit the band, and the timing is probably no coincidence. But there’s still plenty of guitar interplay amid the pop experimentation, said Katie Rife in AVClub .com. And despite some songs that express despair over seeing sexual predators assume top national posts, “this may be Sleater-Kinney’s lustiest album yet.” Given the temptation these days to simply shut down, “thank goodness that Sleater-Kinney is striding boldly into the future, bruised and broken, but still very much alive.” The band Nérija “could only have come from London,” said Matthew Kassel in Pitchfork.com. The nearly all-female jazz septet is a product of a vital local jazz scene that draws on contemporary club genres and “folds in sounds from all over the world.” These young musicians “have a familiar rapport that allows room for risk,” and their “earthy, atmospheric, and danceable” debut album taps the songwriting talents of all seven members. The presence of four horns playing layered lines gives Nérija “the air of a big band,” but even when the musicians are trading solos, “the music thrums with tension while never losing the reggae and funk bits that remind you this is club music at heart.” Guitarist Shirley Tetteh’s “sparkling, rhythmically infectious” flourishes contrast nicely with the warmth of the horns, especially on the opening tracks “Nascence” and “Riverfest,” said Matt Collar in AllMusic.com. “Last Straw,” the very next track, mixes a kinetic Afrobeat groove with angular horns and “sounds like a Blue Note arrangement of an electronic dance track.”