There are definitely "better" Sleater-Kinney albums. However, as much as I love the earlier S-K ones (and I love them a lot), One Beat puts it all together.
Purists decry the pristine production. (reluctant to make a terrible pun here) One Beat lacks the rough edges of earlier work, but these girls aren't street punks and they really never were, regardless of the posturing on Dig Me Out. After all, it took just six months for Carrie to retreat from Berkeley.
As ever, the original bass-less band, the backbone of (you better wise up) Janet Weiss, the many-headed-hyrda singing technique and mad hooks form the structure, but an unabashed tunefulness pervades the album, where that other tracks merely alluded to it. Before they went completely into The Woods, they embraced their stealth-metal edge, tempered by a very Puget Sound dash of indie.
It doesn't hurt that:
- I'm utterly enamored of Carrie Brownstein.
- The album was released at a fun time of my life and is closely associated with good memories.
- S-K was never prone to embarrassment, so even this one, which definitely reaches further than any before it, resonates without being goofy.
- Nobody lingers like your hands on my heart and...
- Sympathy is a killer final track.
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