Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold - August 16th

Why does "talks about the music" need to be in quotes? We know what talking about the music means.

do we tim

do we

Yes, it's when we identify the time and key signatures and discussion the means of modulation, etc. j/k

There's a Song Exploder episode now if people want to nitpick St Vincent's producing decisions some more

most times I feel lucky if there's even a description of the instrumentation/arrangements used

Yikes

pic.twitter.com/bRgHulyArq

— Janet Weiss (@jazzzhand) August 14, 2019

and I was about to post: the album is pretty good, different sonically obv.

damn can’t believe st vincent tried to assassinate janet weiss

Weiss knew they were going in a new direction, she should have been more careful.

who had access to the navigation system and when did they have it?!?!?

oh man poor janet :(
that sucks

Thank God she's OK and will be able to drum!

Damn

damn can’t believe st vincent tried to assassinate janet weiss

― (Appears only as a corpse) (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, August 14, 2019 9:31 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

irl lol, thanks for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fSXmrVJkeM

The new album is great imo, first listen through and enjoyed it mucho.

She went to a Depeche Mode show and got absorbed by synths; Clark and Brownstein saw Nine Inch Nails, and heard industrial.

Hoping it doesn't sound like this

The first song begins with a drone that reminded me of Some Great Reward.

https://www.stereogum.com/2054809/sleater-kinney-the-center-wont-hold-review/franchises/premature-evaluation/

breihan struggling with a record is a pretty sure sign i'll like it and think he's a wiener, reliable as the sunrise

I have many thoughts which I hope to see published tomorrow.

by sunrise???

good morning!

where's those tax returns st vincent??!?!1!!!

reach out is totally what i want from s-k doing depeche, great song

and restless! always like when they wear their go betweens influence proudly

This album is great

"reach out" is so sick

i pretty immediately like this way more than no cities. love what they did here

A bit too much of this reminds me of the harsh, plodding sound of The Woods (my least favourite S-K record) but "Reach Out," "LOVE" and "The Dog/The Body" are immediate standouts. I can really hear St. Vincent on the latter.

gonna go buy this now :)

This is really good at first pass

I like it, it's obviously not the greatest-ever SK album, but it's a good SK album in 2019, which I'm glad to have. What Annie Clark does for them, productionwise, reminds me most immediately of what Flood did for PJ Harvey -- provides a new sonic landscape for songs and ideas that still basically sound like Sleater-Kinney songs and ideas, but also the landscape itself helps shape the songs in ways that they wouldn't have found without it.

Having a *Name That Tune* fail on the beginning on the chorus in "Can I Go On." Wish I could put my finger on the song that reminds me of.

It's a better album than NCTL, which, for obvious reasons, played it safe.

It was probably a good idea to have a producer inject some creative decisions this time. A friend of mine did NCTL and he’s a great engineer and a great guy but he’d never dream of doing that with this band (and I’m sure they didn’t ask), which I’m sure is why that album sounds safe.

Having a *Name That Tune* fail on the beginning on the chorus in "Can I Go On." Wish I could put my finger on the song that reminds me of.

― timellison, Friday, August 16, 2019 2:06 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hmm I don't know and this is unrelated but my first impression of that song is that overall the tempo is just a little too slow?

Bad Dance intro sounds like Passtime Paradise.

Carrie sounds like she's singing "Bat Dance" on "Bad Dance."

First impression is that it's... fine. Don't really care about any of the songs until "RUINS," then there are a couple of good ones. It's not bad just mostly who cares - way more than the supposed St. Vincent influence (I only hear that on "Can I Go On") it sounds like an album where the two songwriters weren't in the same room while they wrote. Corin sounds fantastic on the songs where she takes the lead like "The Future Is Here."

haven't heard the album yet, heard "LOVE" on the radio today, before the singing came in I got a Sprockets flashback

Sprockets then into B-52s, it's awesome

way more than the supposed St. Vincent influence (I only hear that on "Can I Go On") it sounds like an album where the two songwriters weren't in the same room while they wrote.

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Friday, August 16, 2019 10:19 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

according to interviews this is in fact the cse

It's just an ok effort, kinda uneven (some good moments)

I love most of it -- their best since One Beat.

I also like this a lot. My appreciation also extends to the fact that they could easily have coasted with another NCTL type effort (I like that album but it is exactly what you’d expect from their comeback but Alfred otm in that it was understandable). They obviously aren’t fools, they remember some reactions to The Woods, they know any shift away from their expected sound would be met with some pushback. I admire the exploration.

Ooooof, Janet posted a note on Twitter with a gnarly photo of her post-crash leg.

Back to basics on the next one 4 sure

It's a better record than the shaky Fallon performance and advance tracks advertised. And it's much more interesting than just another wheelhouse-type record

The experimentation, when it works (RUINS), is good - other times it is trainwrecky - a couple Brownstein vocals (Hurry... and Can I Go On) are just tics upon tics

ditto some of the cutesy Basement Jaxx-ish bells and whistles - sometimes show-offy in a bad way

Tucker only rarely pulls out her big vocals - her lack of polish and vulnerability is especially marked given what we know she can do

Restless, Ruins, The Dog/The Body, Broken are pretty great

Ruins channels some remain in light sh1t

I've tried it twice now and can't vibe with this shit at all. The problem (for me) isn't just that it's a shift away from the S-K formula, but that it's an out of date shift. I'd have eaten these songs up ca. 2007-08, but now I couldn't give less of a fuck about anything that sounds like this...from any band.

S-K has a formula?