Exhume Your Idols: The Return of Sleater-Kinney

“For us, it was like talking right to the fans, rather than having Pitchfork or NPR be the ones to unveil it,” Weiss says of the decision to include the song with the box set. “It made keeping it a secret worth it to have that kind of discovery.”

And yet, among even Sleater-Kinney’s most dedicated acolytes, there remained a sense of trepidation.

“Oftentimes, when bands break up and get back together, it seems they’re trying to recapture this old magic they had, and it seems kind of sad at times, like they’re trying to recreate something that’s been lost,” says Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, a self-proclaimed Sleater-Kinney “super-fan” who, at the time we spoke, was too nervous to listen to the new album. “I didn’t really feel that way about the single, but there’s always that fear, especially as a lifelong fan of someone, that their reunion efforts are going to be depressing.”

That fear was not lost on the band. It’s precisely why they worked so hard on this album, and why they did so while cloistered away, shielded from any outside influences that might nudge them backward. A major theme of No Citiesis facing down institutions of power, and the institution of Sleater-Kinney is not exempt. There are several songs that seem to speak directly to fans, explaining why the band went away and, to a certain extent, why they’re back. “Bury Our Friends,” though, with its images of death, rebirth and laying to rest the ones you love, provides a hint at how this reunion is going to play out – without a shred of preciousness or nostalgia for what came before:
Exhume our idols

Bury our friends

We’re wild and weary

But we won’t give in

We’re sick with worry

These nerveless days

We live on dread

In our own Gilded Age

“It’s about rising above despair and taking stock of who you are and what you have and trying to make sense of chaos and uncertainty,” says Brownstein, who wrote the chorus and sings it with Tucker. “It’s about pushing forward despite obstacles. It has an empowering chorus, even though there is a sadness there. Because as you go forward, you’re aware of what’s in the rearview mirror. It’s not always things you’re proud of, and it’s things that you’ve lost, but you have to go forward.”

There’s a lot of “pushing forward,” “rising above,” and never giving in going on throughout No Cities. People struggle against abstract forces bigger than themselves, from a working mother caught on the post-recession hamster wheel (“Price Tag”) to a once-powerful man whose self-worth has been reduced to a “clenched fist on a dangling arm” (“Fangless”) to, well, someone who sounds a lot like Corin Tucker, retreating from her own success because “sometimes the heat of the crowd feels a little too close” (“Hey Darling”). But each of those battles are underlined by bold, eruptive defiance, which usually kicks in at the chorus. “We win/ We lose/ Only together do we break the rules,” Tucker and Brownstein sing on “Surface Envy,” as Weiss’s gale-force drums tumble down around them. If there was any concern that Brownstein’s fame would overshadow the trio as a whole, it should be assuaged by how often her voice locks in with Tucker’s. In the past, their relationship on record has often been combative, Tucker’s banshee caterwauling pushing against Brownstein’s angular phrasing. On No Cities, they seem to be making a point of taking on the album’s myriad challenges together, in literal harmony.

“I’ve always been really committed to the idea that both voices are important, and both guitars are important,” Goodmanson says. “I don’t know if it’s because they’re a trio or how they write. I guess it’s both of these things. But it’s like, emphasize one over another at your peril. You’ll lose track of what’s great about Sleater-Kinney really quickly if you don’t get all that stuff interlocking.”

In contrast to the overdriven bluster of The Woods, No Citiessounds practically vacuum-sealed – the product, Brownstein says, of writing much of it in an airless room. “It sounds very precise in a way none of our records have,” she says. “There’s a precision to it we would have never gotten if we’d written it anywhere else.” It might also be their most insistently melodic album yet: For a record that at one point declares “there are no anthems,” there are more songs per capita that fit that description than anything else they’ve done. “It’s a friggin’ unimpeachable record,” Goodmanson says. “And it’s as challenging as they’ve always been, which is amazing.”

It sounds like the work of a band that’s come back to stay. But the future of Sleater-Kinney, at this point, remains unclear. In summer, the band will go back on a temporary hold, as Brownstein films the next season of Portlandia. Tucker still has two young kids at home. The external priorities that ended the band 10 years ago have not gone away. “Fade,” No Cities’ lurching, lighters-up finale, seems to infer that you should enjoy this reunion while this lasts: “If there’s no tomorrow,” Tucker sings, “you better live.”

“When you’re in a band, you don’t really plan that far in advance,” Weiss says. “Most people can plan their lives, they have a map. When you’re in a band, you give that up. But I think the idea of doing the same thing over and over again is not that enticing to any of us.”