3 out of 5

Label: Kill Rock Stars

Producer: John Goodmanson

So there’s like a typical Sleater-Kinney ‘sound’ that existed, somehow, after just one album, and it would hobble around in the back of every recording to greater or lesser extent until ‘The Woods’ broke the goddamn mold (finally) and shook the haunting template out of the bag o’ tricks.  But for ‘Dig Me Out,’ the group had just gotten the ball rolling on their rise to grrl-power stardom, so there’s no need for bag-shaking yet.  Instead, they get a jolt from new drummer Janet Weiss, whose presence is immediately felt in the opener title track, all punk momentum and start of the sort of wall-of-sound barrage that the chicks would commit in their more intense recordings.  John Goodmanson captures this madness gorgeously for about six tracks, which flip-fop through a small list of styles of post-punk and pop (‘Words and Guitar’) that occasionally explode ‘neath Carrie Tucker’s awesome vibrato shout.

While the latter half of the album plays around more with what would become the recognizable tandem singing/guitar interplay, it’s right about at the midway point – ‘Little Babies’ – that the album feels like it falls back a bit on convention (at least for the group), the compositions lacking as much bite in order to toy with some extra instruments and harmonizing (as opposed to Tucker shrieks) and production tricks.  The lyrics shift at the same time.  A lot of S-K songs are somewhat relationship driven, but ‘Babies’ and the songs that follow feel more personal and thus less relateable, also, perhaps, part of that ‘template’ that I’ve made up.  Overall, things just start to blend together.  Those production tricks would hint at future strengths, of course, and the expansive last track – ‘Jenny’ – I would say even looks as far forward as ‘Woods’.  But you have to purposefully tune back in to catch this great closer.

At the time, for followers of the band (and the chick rock scene), the album made a huge impression.  The attention was deserved, for sure, but there was still a formula to things that the group would continue to improve upon.