Corin Tucker Band: Kill My Blues

6.3

Corin Tucker is back with her sophomore album since the break up of seminal grunge girl band- Sleater Kinney. Her previous solo effort was not critically accepted as well as her former co-bandmate’s new band- Wild Flag. Even though Tucker was the ‘voice’ of Sleater Kinney, and an amazingly powerful voice she has, she is not impacting the indie world the way she used to, nor does it sound like she’s trying to. Everybody ages in their own way, and no one expects her to be a riot punk girl for the rest of her life, but this new direction in music isn’t as impressive for what fans would expect from the singer of a legendary group. I’m sure she could have made an album that sounded closer to what Wild Flag is doing, but she seems to be heading in a completely different direction. She still has the golden voice of the Olympia Washington scene, and the songs do rock, but more subdued than exciting. Perhaps this subtlety of character change is intentional, and none of the album is bad. I think it’s just hard for an indie artist to declare an artistic domain apart from the generics that succeed the originals. She would have to make a very dramatic change the way David Bowie or Neil Young have, but I don’t think anyone expects that kind of ambition from Tucker. The best song on the album is actually the single- “Groundhog Day”, which does bring back memories of the Sleater Kinney days. Maybe it’s just me that longs for that era to come back, or could it be Corin Tucker doesn’t have what it takes to be a leading solo artist? Take a listen and see what you think.