Sleater-Kinney was due for a break in 2006 when they went on hiatus following the release of their seventh studio effort, The Woods. Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss all went their separate ways, only to reunite nine years later and record another album, No Cities to Love, due out Jan. 20. The group doesn't see it as a reunion though, Billboard notes.
"We were a moving train -- we just pressed 'pause,'" Brownstein said. "But looking back, it's a relief to stop while you're ahead. It's easier to start that back up again than to exhume a corpse."
During the hiatus, Brownstein rose to fame, yet again -- this time as one half of the team behind IFC's Portlandia alongside Saturday Night Live alum Fred Armisen. Fans of the band who discovered their music after the hiatus know Sleater-Kinney as the band "Carrie from Portlandia is in."
The group released a box set in October before announcing the new album.
"We wanted to get the box set out and move on," Weiss explained. "Part of the impetus to make the new record was so we wouldn't have to go back and live in those old songs. We relate to the new material more intensely."
According to Brownstein, "It's not a reunion -- it's a continuation."
The members wanted to make an album that lived up to the Sleater-Kinney brand. Had No Cities to Love been sub-par, they wouldn't have released it.
"We're touring for an album -- not for a legacy," Brownstein said. "We were willing to shelve it if it didn't live up to our standards; you don't want this flaccid appendage at the end of a very strong body of work."
Check out Sleater-Kinney's tour dates here.
