Burn, Don't Freeze: The End of Sleater-Kinney? (Web only)
this felt like a beginning, not an end
| 14 Aug 2006
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill said that. While it may have been said in a wildly different context to the one which The Skinny attempts to apply it here, it seems rather apt given the news that Sleater-Kinney "have decided to go on indefinite hiatus."
When 'The Woods' arrived in 2005 as the band's Sub Pop debut, it appeared as if Sleater-Kinney had finally toppled into the great void that they had been teetering toward with 2002's 'One Beat'. At times it felt as if they were desperately close to cutting loose completely: Carrie Brownstein's driving guitar, Janet Weiss' pounding beats, and Corin Tucker's urgent yelps were truly singular but ebullient in the sense that it seemed like they were still working within some constraint. As soon as 'The Woods' opened however, and we heard the first hammering bars of The Fox, it was obvious that this was the most natural and loose incarnation of Sleater-Kinney. Brownstein's guitar was louder than before, crushing even, Weiss' drums were clattering and thundering, and Tucker's voice was simply primal. And this felt like a beginning, not an end.
This is the inherent trouble with beginnings; you can never be sure what exactly is going to happen. Now we can only hope that this is indeed not the end, or the beginning of the end and only the end of this particular beginning. I'm sure Winston understands.
When 'The Woods' arrived in 2005 as the band's Sub Pop debut, it appeared as if Sleater-Kinney had finally toppled into the great void that they had been teetering toward with 2002's 'One Beat'. At times it felt as if they were desperately close to cutting loose completely: Carrie Brownstein's driving guitar, Janet Weiss' pounding beats, and Corin Tucker's urgent yelps were truly singular but ebullient in the sense that it seemed like they were still working within some constraint. As soon as 'The Woods' opened however, and we heard the first hammering bars of The Fox, it was obvious that this was the most natural and loose incarnation of Sleater-Kinney. Brownstein's guitar was louder than before, crushing even, Weiss' drums were clattering and thundering, and Tucker's voice was simply primal. And this felt like a beginning, not an end.
This is the inherent trouble with beginnings; you can never be sure what exactly is going to happen. Now we can only hope that this is indeed not the end, or the beginning of the end and only the end of this particular beginning. I'm sure Winston understands.