Sleater-Kinney
– One Beat
You could hear the urgency before the first lyric lands. One Beat isn’t subtle, and it sure as hell doesn’t wait. It kicks in with guitars like sirens and drums that punch holes through silence. Sleater-Kinney were already firebrands, but here they ignite something denser, hotter, more volatile. This is what happens when a band stares down the world’s collapse and decides to write it all down in distortion and defiance.
Best of…
The 9/11 undertow is impossible to miss, but One Beat isn’t a grief record. It’s a resistance record. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker’s twin-guitar tug-of-war has never sounded more urgent—like two sides of the same scream. Janet Weiss, meanwhile, plays like she’s trying to shake something loose from history itself. It’s punk rock that doesn’t beg for your attention—it demands your witness.
What makes this album hit so hard is its balance of political ferocity and emotional precision. Tucker’s voice cracks, soars, shreds—sometimes all in a single line. The rage is not abstract. It’s maternal, civic, deeply personal. This is music for the moment after you break, when you get up anyway and shout louder than before. It’s a record that doesn’t heal wounds so much as trace the scars with a permanent marker.
Choice Tracks
One Beat
The title track sets the tone. Clipped riffs, twitchy rhythms, and a mission statement wrapped in controlled chaos. A call to action with no expiration date.
Far Away
A 9/11 lament that bleeds fear and fury. The guitars churn like panic, and Tucker’s vocals hit like a sob you’ve been holding in too long. Devastating and real.
Oh!
Deceptively bright. Carrie’s delivery is sweet on the surface, but the groove hides a quiet critique. It’s pop that bites. The kind of track that makes you dance and wince at the same time.
Combat Rock
A stomping, sarcastic protest song, full of bile and swagger. The line “Where is the protest?” cuts deep without dressing it up in metaphor. This one doesn’t blink.
One Beat finds Sleater-Kinney louder, sharper, and more fearless than ever. It’s a fist in the air and a scream in the dark—an album that refuses silence, confronts pain, and dances through the wreckage. Urgent music for urgent times.