DUO LIPPY

Just as the second act of their careers - either side of a 10-year break - was gaining momentum, personal tragedy hit feminist firebrands SleaterKinney, now reduced to a two-piece. But after returning to work on artfully angular new album Little Rope, they created 10 songs that serve as a reminder that music can help you find your way through the darkness. A little hope: James McMahon

Sleater-Kinney were midway through the creation of Little Rope, their 11th LP and first since 2021's Path Of Wellness, when S guitarist Carrie Brownstein received the call. It was the US Embassy in Italy. They'd been trying to reach her for days. The news they imparted floored her. Her mother and stepfather had been killed in a car crash, four days earlier while on vacation in Italy.

"What happened isn't really in the content of the record," says Brownstein today. "But what happened definitely shaped the process of making the record. We've been volleying vocals back and forth for years, , but because of the state I was in when we made the record, Corin ended up singing much more than I did."

Brownstein told multiple outlets last year that she found herself 'needing' to hear Tucker sing. "I knew that Carrie wanted to work," says Tucker, who has co-fronted the group with Brownstein since they formed. "She needed the distraction. So, we went to work, and we worked really hard. The atmosphere of making the record became intense because we were pouring everything we had into it. We wanted to make the walls of the songs stronger because they were holding us up in a way. It brought purpose to the record that maybe wasn't there before."

Purpose. A word that articulates the presentation of some of Tucker's best vocals in years. Opener Hell - not so much a song about US school shootings as a howl of pain in the wake of them - hears the singer duelling with the wail of Brownstein's spindly guitar lead. Recent single Say It Like You Mean It is infinitely subtler, while also being the best pure pop song - like a Killers song sharpened on a lathe - the group have released in years. Gerri from Succession (J. Smith-Cameron) appears in the Brownstein-directed black and white promo, a weightless performance eking out more emotion still.