Sleater-Kinney // The Center Won't Hold

Mom + Pop Music 

When Sleater-Kinney came back from a decade-long hiatus in 2015 with their album No Cities to Love, few people expected it to make as big of a splash as it did, widely considered one of the best recordings of that year. Now, more than four years later, they offer up The Center Won't Hold, their final album with longtime drummer Janet Weiss. Earlier this year, Weiss announced she was leaving the band and "heading in a new direction." That direction is best personified by the album's larger-than-life producer, Annie Clark, better known as St. Vincent. Clark is no stranger to the group, particularly singer and guitarist Carrie Brownstein, who is perhaps now more famous for costarring in Portlandia alongside Fred Armisen. Clark and Brownstein even have a satirical concert mockumentary in the works, announced this year. All in all, the album result is a move toward a more modern sound. It relies less on the band's powerful guitar riffs — formerly a quintessential element of the Sleater-Kinney sound by Brownstein and fellow singer and guitarist Corin Tucker. There's still that raw Riot Grrl sound that the group helped define in the '90s, now melded with an art pop sensibility.

 — Nick Warren