On this Pacific Northwest indie-rock summit,
Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker joins R.E.M.'s Peter Buck in a band unafraid to
evoke their signature sounds. Check the Reckoning séance "Any Kind
of Crowd." But the LP's second half gets even more interesting. On "Come
Back Shelley," Tucker seems to reimagine the Beatles' "She's Leaving
Home" via T. Rex and Patti Smith; on "Invitation," she nails an
uncharacteristic folk-blues strut. Many songs ache with Eighties troubled-youth
flashbacks, especially the Pixies-loving "Brother."
