Consumer Guide Album

Sleater-Kinney: Little Rope [Loma Vista, 2024]
New drummer or no new drummer, this great band is as solid and impassioned and inexorable as ever structurally. Thematically and more to the point melodically if you crave some anthems, not so much. In a historical moment when we need female voices to not just disrupt but lead and even impassion more than to exemplify or even analyze, this is a disappointment, and for those who need music to feed both their spirits and their intellects it's a loss. From "Hell is desperation/And a young man with a gun" to "Could you love me if I was broken," they offer limited ideological succor, and why not--they're mortal, after all. Nonetheless, here's hoping they have bigger things in mind. B+