Album of the Week: Sleater-Kinney

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Album of the Week: Sleater-Kinney

Plus Stream New Albums from Ride, Friendly Fires, Shura, Amason, Blanck Mass, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and More

Aug 16, 2019 By Christopher Roberts King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Sleater-Kinney have released a new album, The Center Won’t Hold, today via Mom + Pop and it’s our Album of the Week. Find more info on the album below. Below that are streams of other notable albums released today: Amason, Blanck Mass, Friendly Fires, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Hold Steady, Oso Oso, Ride, and Shura.

Sleater-Kinney: The Center Won’t Hold (Mom + Pop)

The Center Won’t Hold finds the band experimenting with a slightly more polished sound, thanks to producer St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark), and on a new label in Mom + Pop. After the album was announced, drummer Janet Weiss unexpectedly announced at the start of July that she was leaving Sleater-Kinney only a month and a half before their new album was to be released. That makes the band a duo featuring just Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker (which is how Sleater-Kinney began). But knowledge of Weiss’ departure shouldn’t impact fans’ enjoyment of the album, as Weiss still plays on The Center Won’t Hold as a full-on band member.

Yesterday we posted our review of the album written by Adam Turner-Heffer. You can read the whole review here, but below is an excerpt:

“The Center Won’t Hold works best when it is palpably teeming with lust, sadness, or frustration. While this is not a political album in the way 2002’s One Beat was, there is a clear struggle on display over modern female and queer identities and how it has evolved throughout Sleater-Kinney’s career.

“In that regard, the album is successful in displaying where Brownstein and Tucker (as the band’s dual-mouthpieces) are in 2019, encapsulated beautifully on the album’s piano-led closer ‘Broken.’ Elsewhere, ‘Reach Out’ and ‘Can I Go On’ provide the kind of anthemic rallying calls we collectively get behind Sleater-Kinney for.”

Prior to the announcement of The Center Won’t Hold, Sleater-Kinney shared the album’s first single “Hurry On Home” via a Miranda July-directed lyric video for the track (it was one of our Songs of the Week). When the album was announced they shared its second single, “The Future Is Here,” which was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then they stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform “Hurry On Home,” in what might be Weiss’ last public performance with the band.

Then they shared the album’s title track, “The Center Won’t Hold,” which was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared “Can I Go On,” via a lyric video (it was also one of our Songs of the Week). Then they shared a video for them performing the album’s closing track “Broken” live, with just Brownstein on keyboards and Tucker standing next to her singing.

In a previous press release Brownstein also had this to say about recording the album: “Instead of just going into the studio to document what we’d done, we were going in to explore and to find the essence of something. To dig in deeper. It felt like a really crucial part of the process itself, not just the end game.”

Sleater-Kinney North American Tour Dates:

09-15 Raleigh, NC - Hopscotch Music Festival
10-09 Spokane, WA - Fox Theater
10-11 Boise, ID - Knitting Factory Boise
10-12 Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
10-13 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
10-15 Minneapolis, MN - Palace Theatre
10-16 Milwaukee, WI - The Riverside Theater
10-18 Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre
10-19 Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre
10-20 Louisville, KY - Old Forester’s Paristown Hall
10-21 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
10-23 Atlanta, GA - Tabernacle
10-25 Washington, DC - The Anthem
10-26 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
10-27 Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore
10-29 Boston, MA - House of Blues
10-30 Brooklyn, NY - Kings Theatre
10-31 New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
11-01 Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall
11-03 Toronto, Ontario - Rebel Complex
11-04 Detroit, MI - Majestic Theatre
11-05 St. Louis, MO - The Pageant
11-07 Houston, TX - House of Blues
11-08 Dallas, TX - House of Blues
11-09 Austin, TX - ACL Live at The Moody Theater
11-11 Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren
11-12 San Diego, CA - The Observatory North Park
11-13 Santa Ana, CA - The Observatory OC
11-14 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium
11-16 Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
11-17 Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
11-19 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
11-20 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
11-21 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom
11-23 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre
11-24 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre