he drive from Boston to New York can take as little as 2.5 hours, door-to-door, pedal-to-floor, so wasting a Saturday on the second annual Village Voice Siren Fest wasn’t a choice so much as fate. After an uneventful jog down 84, a few midnight beers, a quasi-restful night on the couch, a morning donut run, and a three hour ordeal involving traffic, maps, fumes, cigarettes, signposts, seagulls, kid-loaded station wagons, and other clear indications of a beach-bound Saturday populace, my car found its way (I was driving, but I can’t say I was in charge of the operation...) to Coney Island.


After a few laps (to check the place out, of course, not due to wrong turns), I steered the car into a lot and set off for the main stage. The traffic had put me a good 2 hours behind schedule, so I had missed a few key bands – luckily, Sleater-Kinney was penciled for last, so I still had a few hours to kill absorbing 1) UV light, 2) overpriced domestic beer, and 3) NYC hipster “culture.” And kill I did! After 240 minutes of stand walk sit eat drink smoke sweat I was dead on my feet, and as Sleater-Kinney took the stage and plunged into “One Beat” I realized that this was the last band I’d want to sit through after a day of entertainment-veiled annoyance.


The fact that they opened with the lead track off their new album cemented my decision (are they here to play music, or to sell records?), and I headed to the second stage, where the Mooney Suzuki sufficiently rocked my ass with their best pre-Tommy Who impression.


Well, despite the rock, I’ve gotta say it was a mistake. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with The Mooney Suzuki and their garage-revival ilk, most discerning listeners will tell you that an honest, emotional performance by a forward-thinking band trumps MC5 retrowank any day of the week.


And the gravity of my mistake is reinforced every time I listen to One Beat. By taking the visceral punch of Dig Me Out and The Hot Rock, blending that with the pop sensibilities of All Hands on the Bad One, and throwing in a few bonuses, Sleater-Kinney have crafted their best album yet.


Now, before the dissection, I’m obligated to make several statements regarding Sleater-Kinney (As per RockCrit Law #367):


1) Re: an all-girl band in a male-dominated genre. S-K have never been shy about their politics, but on One Beat the usual rants have less to do with gender inequality than with an overriding sense of Post-September-11th ennui. However, girls in bands are still hella cute, especially on the “oh whoa-oh”s.
2) Re: Janet Weiss’s superhuman percussive abilities. Yeah, we know. She’s a fucking robot. Everyone knows this – go review the Vines, you lazy cunt.
3) Re: the “comfort album.” Most successful bands make an album finding their place in the rock canon and another album or two shoring up that spot before they try expanding into new territory (see Radiohead). Sleater-Kinney is no exception, adding moog, theremin, and horns to some tracks. (But otherwise leaving their formula alone to age).


Well now that that’s out of the way, we can dispense with the appetizer and get to the meat...


“One Beat” starts with a repetitive drum and guitar riff and shouted vocals. On paper it sounds pretty boring, and through the phones it’s not much better. However, the raw emotion in the vocals and the simplistic backing draws your attention and forces you to give the lyrics a chance to shine. I won’t quote them -- to stop the track to catch ‘em would be a crime – but it seems that someone’s inheriting the world here, things are changing, and no one knows what’s gonna happen. This theme resurfaces throughout, and while I hate to say “it’s a reflection of this changing post-september-11th world” that’s probably the best way to describe it.


“Far Away” shows a lot more promise, featuring a catchier guitar riff and simplistic drumming a la Meg White before exploding into the chorus, whose “don’t breathe / the air / today” is catchier than anything on All Hands (with the exception of, maybe, “You’re No Rock n’ Roll Fun.” By the second chorus, S-K reach into their old bag of tricks, and throw some counterpoint vocals into the mix.


“Oh” dispenses with the riffs and lets guitar harmony take the stage. The moog in the chorus is a nice touch, and provides a foundation for the vocals – and some of the tightest vocal harmony this side of CSNY.


“The Remainder” is more of the same, really, not any better or worse, though the vocals are more subdued, so it may appeal to those who are turned off by the band’s harsher yelps. Oh. And there are strings.


“Light Rail Coyote” recalls former tour mates The White Stripes again, but while the Stripes ride their one trick for three albums, S-K mixes it up in a single song: the guitars switch from distorted legato chords to plucked harmony at the exact moment Weiss gives the cymbals a break and spreads the love to her toms.


“Step Aside” is a bit of a throwback to the Dig Me Out days, but the horns rescue it from being a simple retread. I’ll always be a sucker for that two chord downstroke, no matter how many times it’s revisited.


“Combat Rock”s vocal acrobatics begin grate after several play-throughs, but the lyrics hold up time after time (“since when is skepticism un-American”), providing a welcome alternative to the plague of 9-11 memorial songs.


“02” is a bit of a letdown after the brilliant first half, but is no worse than anything on The Hot Rock.


“Funeral Song” is a definite highlight -- the haunted house imagery meshes perfectly with the theremin, the lyrics are as deep as you want them to be, and the chugging chorus complements the verse flawlessly.


“Hollywood Ending” is the epitome of Sleater-Kinney, fusing everything they’ve done, for better or worse.


“Sympathy” offers some rudimentary slide guitar. It’s good to see the ladies doing more to “expand” than simply hiring brass sections and thereminists. After the initial (and, again, White Stripes-esque) verse, the song moves through several raucous incarnations settling into a fairly standard rock groove – but, like most things tried and true, it works.


So, what are we to make of all this? Is this Sleater-Kinney’s most rockin’ album? No. Is it their most poppin’? Nope. Is it the perfect fusion of everything the band has done thus far, and a demonstration of immense potential, a promise of greater things to come? You bet.