''Path of Wellness'' is the tenth studio album by the American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Sleater-Kinney Sleater-Kinney ( ) is an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band's current lineup features Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar) and Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), following the departure of longtime member ...

. The album was released on June 11, 2021 by Mom + Pop Music.

Background

Following a nine-year hiatus, the American punk rock band

announced their return with the track "Bury Our Friends" on October 19, 2014. On January 20, 2015, they released '' No Cities to Love'' via

Sub Pop Records Sub is a common abbreviation of words beginning with the prefix "sub-". Sub or SUB may also refer to Places * Juanda International Airport, Surabaya, Indonesia, IATA code SUB Computing and technology * , an HTML tag for subscript * SUB designate ...

, the first Sleater-Kinney album since 2005's '' The Woods''. Three years later, singer and guitarist

Carrie Brownstein Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, actress, writer, director, and comedian. She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the rock trio Sleater-Kinney. During a long hiatus ...

told ''

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'' that Sleater-Kinney was working on a follow-up effort to ''No Cities To Love'', but that they were "going to do this very slowly". In January 2019, Brownstein confirmed to

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

that the album was produced by St. Vincent and would be released later in the year. On July 1, 2019, drummer

Janet Weiss Janet Lee Weiss (born September 24, 1965) is an American rock drummer, best known as a former member of Sleater-Kinney and a current member of Quasi. She was the drummer for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, leaving after the album '' Mirror Traffic ...

announced over Instagram that she was leaving Sleater-Kinney, saying, "The band is heading in a new direction and it is time for me to move on." Sleater-Kinney's ninth studio album, '' The Center Won't Hold'', was released a month and a half later, on August 16. There was some speculation among fans that Weiss had left Sleater-Kinney due to St. Vincent's involvement in the new record, which Brownstein denied, saying that it was originally Weiss's idea to work with her. Responding to a fan on Instagram, Brownstein added, "She left. We asked her to stay. We tried. It's hard and sad." When Sleater-Kinney went on tour that September to promote ''The Center Won't Hold'', they recruited Angie Boylan of

Aye Nako Aye Nako is an American punk band from Brooklyn, New York, United States. The band originated in 2010 and promotes a "community-oriented, anti-capitalist, LGBTQ-friendly ideology". After self-releasing a well-received debut album titled '' Unleash ...

as their touring drummer. That November, Weiss appeared on the ''Trap Set With Joe Wong''

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

, saying that she had left Sleater-Kinney because the "roles changed within the band", and that she was "just the drummer now" as opposed to "a creative equal" with Tucker and Brownstein.

Release and promotion

On May 11, 2021, Sleater-Kinney announced the album title, cover art, and release date for ''Path of Wellness'', and promised their fans "so much more, soon". Accompanying the album announcement was the release of ''Path of Wellness''s

lead single A lead single (also known as a debut single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date. Release s ...

and

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

, "Worry With You". The video, directed by Alberta Poon, features a young couple, played by Fabi Reyna and Megan Watson, attempting to cohabitate in their undersized house. Tucker and Brownstein make

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

s as an actor in a pharmaceutical commercial and as a television fitness instructor, respectively. On May 26, the band released their follow-up single and video to "Worry With You", titled "High in the Grass". Directed by Kelly Sears, the video for "High in the Grass" provides a psychedelic element, with trees with eyes and a number of decapitated figures, both dancing and attempting

cardiopulmonary resuscitation Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spon ...

, before culminating in a dance party. The final single to be released in advance of ''Path of Wellness'' was "Method", which came out on June 9. The song was accompanied by a

Lance Bangs Lance Bangs (born September 4, 1972) is an American filmmaker and music video director. He has created videos for Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Neutral Milk Hotel, Green Day, Arcade Fire, The Shins, The Thermals, Belle & Sebastian, Menomena, Yeah Ye ...

-directed

lyric video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

. To accompany the June 11 release of ''Path of Wellness'', Sleater-Kinney announced a

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp ...

-style

livestream Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but ...

Amazon Music Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights ...

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channel, beginning at 9p.m. ( ET) on June 10. Hosted by Chris Hewett, the livestream featured "interviews, live performances and a fortune teller weighing in on

he band's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

future prospects", as well as a variety of guest appearances from celebrities and musicians such as Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, and

Matt Berninger Matthew Donald Berninger (, born February 13, 1971) is an American singer-songwriter, primarily known as the frontman and lyricist of indie rock band The National. In 2014, he also formed the EL VY project with Brent Knopf of Ramona Falls and ...

from the National. On June 25, Sleater-Kinney released a live

extended play An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.

titled ''Live At The Hallowed Halls'', featuring recordings of the four tracks on ''Path of Wellness'' that they played during the livestream event. Sleater-Kinney promoted ''Path of Wellness'' with two other live and recorded events. On June 16, Sleater-Kinney appeared on ''

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' is an American late-night news and liberal political satire talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert, which premiered on September 8, 2015. Produced by Spartina Productions and CBS Studios, it is the second ...

'' to perform "Worry With You". Rather than playing in front of a live studio audience, the band submitted a pre-taped performance from an abandoned

skate park A skatepark, or skate park, is a purpose-built recreational environment made for skateboarding, BMX, scootering, wheelchairs, and aggressive inline skating. A skatepark may contain half-pipes, handrails, funboxes, vert ramps, stairsets, qua ...

. The next day, Tucker and Brownstein appeared on the

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service ''Words + Music'' to discuss "30 years of shared history making music and making noise".

Critical reception

''Path of Wellness'' was met with mostly positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''Path of Wellness'' has an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

score of 78 based on 18 reviews. The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

AnyDecentMusic? gave the album 7.1 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

Track listing

Charts

References

{{Sleater-Kinney 2021 albums Sleater-Kinney albums Mom + Pop Music albums