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Oct 15, 2010 Issue #33 - Fall 2010 - Interpol By John Everhart

Since Sleater-Kinney went on an indefinite hiatus in 2006, their members have followed dramatically different muses. Carrie Brownstein works for NPR, writing the “Monitor Mix” blog, while Janet Weiss has continued as a drummer and songwriter, both with her own band Quasi, and as an auxiliary member with the likes of The Jicks and Bright Eyes. Yet Corin Tucker, who had perhaps the strongest identity in Sleater-Kinney with her blood-curdling caterwaul, has been conspicuously absent from the music world, instead focusing on raising her two young children, until now. 1,000 Years, Tucker’s first proper solo album, under the moniker The Corin Tucker Band, is a dramatic stylistic departure from her work with Sleater-Kinney, but no less compelling.

“Doubt,” one of the few tracks to recall the adrenalized frenzy of Sleater-Kinney, is the most immediate moment here. All Zeppelin-esque guitar squalor and taut rhythmic torque, it finds Tucker playfully urging, “Break up with the boogie/Break up with the beat/I tried, I tried, but I couldn’t leave,” perhaps an elliptical reference to her own return to music after such a protracted absence.

“Dragon” kicks off as an austere acoustic ditty, circling Tucker’s lament, “Someone is missing from this picture sketch.” But it’s when it metamorphoses into a gloriously baroque chamber pop number that it truly attains a rarified level of greatness, as a mélange of cello, violin, and fiddle lend it a meditative, maudlin atmosphere. The instrumentation gorgeously complements her lovesick, ambivalent pronouncement, “He feels close every day/Don’t open that door/Push him away,” a line that drives a stake through your heart with its emotional starkness, recalling the raw nerve contrition evoked on Sleater-Kinney’s classic “One More Hour.”

While “Dragon” is the most accomplished track here, the entire album exhibits a quantum leap in songwriting prowess for Tucker. She’s a staggeringly talented musician, and taking a break from Sleater-Kinney has seemingly inspired her to audaciously push the boundaries of her sound. And she succeeds spectacularly on this superb album, one which will surely assuage the legions of Sleater-Kinney fans clamoring for a reunion (www.killrockstars.com)

Author rating: 8/10