Sleater-Kinney

You know all that dark matter scientists can't locate, that cosmological mystery meat that makes up 25 percent of all existence? It's here, people, in "Let's Call It Love," an 11-minute colossus of riffs and wailing that announces, at last, that the women of Sleater-Kinney are unashamed to be the real rock heroes they should have become a decade ago. Their records have always started strong -- with spiky, cathartic blasts powered by Corin Tucker's flamethrower vocals, Carrie Brownstein's viciously odd-angled guitar, and the sticks of Janet Weiss (for my dollar, the last great rock drummer) -- but then petered out around track seven with low-watt experiments. The failure always seemed willful: Instead of saving rock, the band spent half its time hair-shirted. In turn, the world left Sleater-Kinney alone. But on The Woodsthe band is unflagging, its purpose whetted, those odd angles beefed up into great, bruising wedges of sound, the cutesy buzz-pop junked for Stooges stomp and Live at Leeds-style ass kicking. It's Sleater-Kinney's fiercest, least compromising set since Dig Me Out-- and also its most commercial -- and building a stereo to blast this as loud as it needs to be blasted is beyond any feat of human engineering.