Bury Our Friends has Tucker and Brownstein
joining vocal forces, locking arms to defeat a pressing fear of insignificance.
It s also emblematic of the band s give and take, and commitment to working and
reworking each song until it s as strong as it can be. Bury Our Friends
was written in the 11th hour, says Tucker. Carrie had her great
chime-y guitar riff, but we had gone around in circles with how to make that
part into a cohesive song. I think Carrie finally cracked the chorus idea and
yelled, Sing with me! A New Wave similarly went through
many iterations during the writing process, with five or six potential
choruses, before crystallizing. It enters with an insistent guitar riff, and a
battle between acceptance and defiance– Every day I throw a little
party, howls Brownstein, but a fit would be more fitting.

The album s meditative title track was inspired by the trend
of atomic tourism and its function as a metaphor for someone enthralled and
impressed by power. That form of power, that presence, is not only
destructive it s also hollowed-out, past its prime, says Brownstein. The
character in that song has made a ritual out of seeking structures and people
in which to find strength, yet they keep coming up empty.

Sleater-Kinney s decade apart made
room for family and other fruitful collaborations, as well as an understanding
of what the band s singular chemistry demands. Creativity is about where
you want your blood to flow, because in order to do something meaningful and
powerful there has to be life inside of it, says Brownstein. Sleater-Kinney
isn t something you can do half-assed or half-heartedly. We have to really want
it. This band requires a certain desperation, a direness. We have to be willing
to push because the entity that is this band will push right back.

The core of this record is
our relationship to each other, to the music, and how all of us still felt
strongly enough about those to sweat it out in the basement and to try and
reinvent our band, adds Tucker. With No
Cities to Love, we went for the jugular.