Sleater-Kinney went on indefinite hiatus in 2006. Since then, drummer Janet Weiss released albums with Quasi and Stephen Malkmus’ Jicks, while guitarist Carrie Brownstein embarked on a comedy career with Fred Armisen and became a music blogger for NPR. (The two women also recently announced a new project together, Wild Flag, alongside Mary Timony.) But Corin Tucker has been strangely quiet– which is ironic given that she was the shrieking-banshee warbler of the group. Out of the spotlight, Tucker has spent the last four years attending to her family in Portland, Oregon– she has two children with filmmaker Lance Bangs– and, more recently, working on her own songs around her kids’ school and playgroup schedules with a new eponymous band that includes former Unwound drummer Sara Lund and guitarist Seth Lorinczi of the Golden Bears.
These new tracks, which now comprise 1,000 Years, are recognizably Tucker’s, though they derive their intensity not from volatile guitars, driving rhythms, or brash vocal melodies, but from their surprisingly muted, slow-burning intimacy. So be forewarned, though: fans jonesing for a Sleater-Kinney fix will be disappointed. Instead of bursting into the expected shrieking choruses, these songs smolder. Melodies meander, encouraging patience in their listeners. Tucker uses her bold caterwaul sparingly, which is partially a shame since we are so starved for it, but also gives great weight to the few moments when she finally unfurls the full force of her yelp (as on “Riley”, one of the few tracks that recalls Tucker’s more incendiary Sleater-Kinney past).
Yet these songs have a quiet power of their own, and many surprise listeners by relying on gently finger-picked guitar lines or dreamy, sparse piano arrangements (as on the originally-made-for-Twilight: New Moon track “Miles Away” or the opening of the life-during-recession tale “Thrift Store Coats”). Without Weiss’ fierce fills and Brownstein’s fiery riffage, Tucker’s tunes sound tame and downcast. Sometimes that restraint is lovely, as on “Half a World Away”, a spare, staccato track about the difficulty of being separated from Bangs while he’s traveling for work. That song is a bit of a fake-out for S-K fans, as it’s built on a hiccupping vocal melody that recalls One Beat’s “Combat Rock” in its verses, but fails to explode into a hollered chorus, which only makes its lyrical longing more palpable. But sometimes that restraint disappoints, as on the wilting, acoustic “Dragon”, whose cutesy string pizzicatos only add to its overworked chamber-pop ambiance.
This album’s strengths– its intimacy, its containment, its subtlety– are not the qualities that made Sleater-Kinney great, but it would be ungenerous to dismiss this because it’s not as thrilling, confrontational, or exuberant. Plus, 1,000 Years is clearly a personal collection– it’s hard to not hear songs like the aforementioned “Half a World Away” or the loneliness-tinged “It’s Always Summer”, with its lines about hotel bars and counting the days, as autobiographical tales of a marriage that is often plagued by work-related distance and separation. And the comparably subdued nature of the album’s music complements such lyrical confidences. So, if you are looking for catharsis via Sleater-Kinney, pull out your copy of Dig Me Out or The Woods, but if you are interested in where Corin Tucker is now, 1,000 Years provides a thoughtful, subtle snapshot.
— Rebecca Raber, October 8, 2010