Hear clips of two new Sleater-Kinney songs in NPR interview

On Jan. 20, Sleater-Kinney are releasing their long-awaited eighth album, No Cities to Love, which follows 2005’s amazing The Woods. And from the sound of it, it’s going to be a good one: Their new single “Bury Our Friends” was recently one of our Endless Playlist picks. And NPR has shared some clips of two new songs from the album in a long interview about the album. At 19:19, you can hear a clip of new song “Surface Envy,” and at 32:39, a clip from the title track — which can be heard here. In addition to the new Sleater-Kinney songs, the NPR interview offers some illuminating information about the album and the band’s reunion.

On the subject of growing up and continuing to perform, Janet Weiss says, “I feel like, with the three of us, with the way we connect, there’s a desperation to reach a certain level…a desperation to break through of the mundane, of the generic. We’re trying to push through, so desperately, to something bigger, that it just sort of comes out in this really powerful, forward-moving way. But I don’t think that’s changed. I think…we just…don’t write a lot of slow songs —there’s a lot of…unbridled energy….I guess as far as young versus old, I don’t really feel like I’ve said it all, and I’m comfortable, and I’m sort of ready to kick my feet up. I feel like there’s a lot left to do… and if we’re gonna do this, the three of us, let’s make it off the charts.”

And Carrie Brownstein says of the writing of the new album, “We wrote in my basement. It took on many permutations, and eventually we settled on a process that was a little more akin to what we had done in the early years, partially because Corin and I had to kind of reacquaint ourselves to the very specific vernacular that she and I speak, musically. And so, [she] and I would work on songs and then bring them to Janet, instead of jamming … It’s almost telepathic. I think that Corin and I can complete each other’s musical sentences in a way that never ceases to surprise me.”

Read Candice Eley’s inaugural Impulse Noise column on the importance of Sleater-Kinney’s return.