Sleater-Kinney: No Cities to Love (Sub Pop) If this is, as the band has stated, less a reunion and more them picking up where they left off, then that explains why it’s less eventful than expected. It’s a phenomenal album, of course, but it leans closer to The Hot Rock than The Woods, moving from song to song with ease and rarely managing to astonish on a sonic level. Have they become the dull, professional critical darlings they wrote “Entertain” about? No, whoever that band was could never record songs this powerful, let alone an album this consistent, and if this is disappointing in any way, that’s a credit to their discography, not a discredit to the album itself. In fact, when I saw them, they performed all but one of these songs and skipped over my two personal favorites, “One More Hour” and “You’re No Rock and Roll Fun.” I was hardly displeased and, in future tours, it would be nice hearing many of these songs again—“Price Tag” is a notably strong show-opener that I hope they continue using. That’s the drawback of being the best band of the past 20 years: mere greatness is sure to disappoint. A
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