The Best

The trajectory of the one-time standard bearers for the riot grrrl movement has been an interesting one. Originally disbanding in 2006 after releasing The Woods, widely considered their master work, they reformed in 2015 to put out No Cities To Love, an album I adore that made it seem like the decade gap hadn’t occurred at all. They then took some serious missteps, doing 2019’s The Center Won’t Hold with St. Vincent producing and missing pretty much everything that made Sleater-Kinney great in favour of a contemporary indie-style sound. It was enough for drummer Janet Weiss to peace out, recognizing rightly that this wasn’t the band she’d signed up for. 2021’s middling Path Of Wellness didn’t do anything nearly enough to right that sinking ship, but Little Rope is the album that should have come out instead. Many people are comparing it to No Cities To Love but it’s definitely a product of this new Sleater-Kinney, not the one that has gone and will not be seen again. With that said, the band has come to a sort of equilibrium of the two. The melodies aren’t as strident and the guitar lines are definitely not as knotted as they once were, but musically this is the most powerful they’ve been in almost ten years. The Corin Tucker-Carrie Brownstein connection finally explodes again, and while Angie Boylan doesn’t quite have that effortless swing that Janet Weiss brought to the group, her more minimalist pounding keeps Tucker and Brownstein grounded. Is it a return to form? No, not at all, but the form works for the band as they are now, and they sell it very well.

When last we checked in with post-emo band glass beach, they were, as I put it five years ago, implying emo, suggesting prog-rock, rolling up and smoking old jazz records. They are still doing this, but the balance has shifted mightily: they imply emo less often and have gone beyond suggesting prog rock to straight up banging it out. They are, however, still doing whatever the hell they want, and that is now even cooler than it was before.

The French space-rock band has gone through some sonic upgrades since last we met them. Before they were tossing in just the right amount of hard rock to have taken their lessons from Lemmy on how to kick ass in a space rock setting. Now they’re leavening it with heavy moments of curdled stoner explosions, like taking bong rips on the ISS.

Norway’s Vemod deliver on their long-awaited promise with an atmospheric set of heavy songs that combine the winter-blast wolf howl of black metal with gentle, nimble neo-folk passages that linger with the promise of spring. The Deepening sets a high bar for heavy music at the start of the year.

Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson’s second album with her Amayrillis sextet is an uneven sophomore record but one that contains moments of sheer cooking joy. It feels largely improvised which can always be hit and miss even with the best composers and players. Parts of it can be a little noodly, but when it lands it lands with explosive force.

Joyously queer psychedelic surf punk from England. If you can imagine a more energetic, scorchingly punk rock B-52s fronted by a transgendered firebrand, then you’re already halfway there.

The Rest

Green Day – Saviors ★★★☆ (Reprise) After the post-American Idiot troubles, Green Day was the last band I’d had pegged to age gracefully, but here we are.

ericdoa – DOA ★★☆ (Interscope) Eminem as curse rather than prophecy

Neck Deep – Neck Deep ★★★ (Hopeless) Perfectly serviceable pop punk

Saxon – Hell, Fire and Damnation ★★★ (None) Bog standard power metal, but power metal fans will probably still get a kick out of it – it is Saxon after all.

Black Grape – Orange Head ★★★ (DGAFF) Sleaford Mods level cheekiness, but with an expanded musical palette.

PACKS – Melt The Honey ★★★☆ (Fire Talk) Madeline Link does a lot with a (now) fairly well-trodden genre – small town women with heavy guitars and alt-rock sensibilities.

Lord Dying – Clandestine Transcendence ★★★ (Melody Catalog) A middling cross between Mastodon and The Sword without the x factor of either.

The Fauns – How Lost ★★★☆ (Invada) Sparkling electronic shoegaze from a veteran Bristol group

Eliza McLamb – Going Through It ★★★☆ (Royal Mountain) A disciple of the Lucy Dacus school of songwriting, with a better-than-average output. Maybe in a few years there’ll be something to affix “Mythologize Me” to.

Brown Horse – Reservoir ★★★☆ (Loose Music) Situated squarely in the middle of alt-country but there’s something about it that makes it hard to look away once you’re in it.

Upon Stone – Dead Mother Moon ★★★ (Century Media) Decent enough melodic death, the Misfits cover at the end is a nice touch.

Conchúr White – Swirling Violets ★★☆ (Bella Union) Alright songwriting but uninspiring production.

Keyon Harrold – Foreverland ★★★ (Concord) A couple of appearances from Robert Glasper can’t save this record from coasting on one sound for most of it’s runtime.

Brittney Spencer – My Stupid Life ★★★ (Elektra) It’s funny how interchangeable mainstream Nashville and alt pop are.

Abhoria – Depths ★★☆ (Prosthetic) Meat-and-potatoes black metal without the overwhelming, suffocating wall of shoegaze noise. The overwhelming, suffocating wall of shoegaze noise is the part I like, though.

Ekkstacy – Ekkstacy ★★☆ (Dine Alone) Slick but ultimately meaningless.

Master – Saints Dispelled ★★★ (Hammerheart) That’s a death metal record, all right.

Omar Rodríguez-López – Is It The Clouds? ★★★ (Cloud Hill) Wordy but uneven

Filmmaker – Land Of Hidden Variables ★★★ (Opal) Conspiracies? I dunno what they’re on about but there’s some pretty decent industrial techno noise going on here.