The Corin Tucker Band: "Doubt"

True story: my wife and I were both in attendance at the same July 2003 Sleater-Kinney concert in Brooklyn, NY before either of us knew that the other existed. She arguably likes them more than I do. But she isn’t really feeling the first single off the upcoming Corin Tucker solo record, dismissing it as “just Sleater-Kinney without the awesome Carrie riffs. What’s the point?”

I don’t disagree entirely with her physical description of said song; the riffage in question is just Corin Tucker playing the crap out of three chords over rudimentary (i.e. not Janet Weiss) punk drumming. But whatever “Doubt” may lack in intricacy, it more than makes up for in simple crankage, with Tucker reverting back to her twangy shriek over amplification that hasn’t sounded this raw since the Dig Me Out (1997) era. Plus it’s got a hand clap section and a false ending.

And is there anything really wrong with settling for “Sleater-Kinney without the awesome Carrie riffs”? That description can still blow 90% of indie rock bands off the face of the earth, and I have too much faith in Tucker’s taste to think that her forthcoming 1000 Years will be anything less than awesome. At worst, it’ll likely serve as methadone for Sleater fans everywhere, or couched in David Simon terms, the Treme to Sleater-Kinney’s The Wire.

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