"Little Rope": Sleater-Kinney bring their eleventh album to the live stage
Two teenagers in high school and a highway exit called "Sleater-Kinney": this is how the story of one of the most important rock bands of our time began. When Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker realized during their school days in 1993 that they shared a love of music as well as their feminist convictions, it wasn't a long step to forming their own band. A year later, Lora MacFarlane joined them on vocals and guitar, and the band's self-titled debut "Sleater-Kinney" was released in 1995. Since then, the trio has released album after album at a steady pace. With an interval of no more than three, if not fewer, years between each album, the female group played their way into the hearts of rock fans around the world and became one of the figureheads of the riot grrrl movement, which opposed male dominance in the music industry. Sleater-Kinney's success grew organically and was consolidated with every record. The third album "Dig Me Out" from 1997, on which MacFarlane was replaced by Janet Weiss, can probably be described as the rock band's breakthrough album - but the following four records were also critically acclaimed. After "The Woods", 2005 was the end for the time being: In a press release, Sleater-Kinney announced that they were taking an indefinite hiatus, which was to last a full ten years. in 2015, the comeback album "No Cities for Love" was released and the group's prolific output resumed seamlessly, as if Sleater-Kinney had never been away. At the beginning of the year, the band released their latest work to date, which sounds as loud and energetic as it did on the first day, even after 30 years in the business. "Little Rope" is a dramatic album on which the group - now only consisting of the original duo Brownstein and Tucker - deals with tragic deaths in their immediate environment. The work revolves around grief and coping with it, which for Sleater-Kinney seems to work best with a guitar in hand. The results of this can be heard on "Little Rope", an album that has much of the group's musical beginnings and puts the focus back on the rock energy of yesteryear. Soon this will also be noticeable on the live stage: In August, Sleater-Kinney will be in Germany for three dates as part of their tour, playing in Berlin, Cologne and Munich.