Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Less Riot Grrl than Riot Lladies Who Lunch: Sleater-Kinney’s Little Rope reviewed

Catchy punk pop sung by girls is now everywhere in the USA, and often done a lot better than this

issue 19 October 2024

Grade: B-

Given that Carrie and Corin are now in their fifties and one of them has settled down with a nice man, this is perhaps less Riot Grrl than Riot Lladies Who Lunch. You cannot expect fury to sustain itself for 30 years, not least when your band has long since ceased being an upstart revolution to the patriarchal rock order and has become instead a kind of indie heartland rock institution.

This is Sleater-Kinney’s 11th take on that curiously bloodless American version of punk, a genre which is now comfortably mainstream. They never had quite the cuteness or pop sensibilities of, say, Veruca Salt: what marked them out originally was a disinclination to compromise.

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