Dig Me Out Sleater-Kinney 1997

BEFORE they released their third album Dig Me Out , Sleater-Kinney were already old hands on the rock scene, despite the fact that nobody outside of NorthWest America had heard of them. Spawned in 1995 from their respective bands Heavens To Betsy and Excuse 17 during the Riot Grrrl movement, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein met when they went on a date (or so urban lesbian myth has it).

They formed Sleater-Kinney, named after a road junction near their practise space, with Janet Weiss from Quasi on drums and the all-female line-up made for a fairly intense dynamic.

After two albums their brief eponymous debut and the full-on hurt-rock of Call The Doctor came the blistering and sublime Dig Me Out .

The opening riff of the title track is still one of the fiercest rock riffs I ve ever heard, all spiky, abrasive guitars, with Weiss s sinister rolling drums beating out a warning for Tucker s impending wail.

Hearing Dig Me Out for the first time was almost epiphanic.

Here were three girls, who were playing their guitars as hard and fast as they wanted, and singing with a steely ire and defiance that sent a shiver down your spine and a thrill right back up it.

Dig Me Out was a turning point for Sleater-Kinney as well as their fans. They no longer sounded amateurish, the production was ten times better than their demosounding first two albums and the song-writing had sky-rocketed. And crucially, Tucker and Brownstein had finally found their guitar playing styles, with their guitar harmonies now sounding made for each other.

Five years and several records later, this album is still their best with Dig Me Out , Turn It On , Words and Guitar and Little Babies still sounding unbelievably good. As one satisfied customer on Amazon said, Buy it.

Listen to it. Like it. Then love it. I couldn t offer better advice.