Brownstein's treble-charged riffs and Tucker's volatile vibrato still sound nerve endings and raw emotions. But thematically, The Hot Rock counters Dig Me Out's visceral immediacy with cerebral containment. Time is an ever present tension trap. S-K literalize metaphors. The Hot Rock renders every connection as a power source and problem.
Music collapses into frustration and frustration takes flight as music.
Monochromatic on the surface, The Hot Rock is intricate when studied close-up. Her ambivalence remains. But it's matured from an adolescent feminist's critique of romantic symbols to an adult's scary realization that those symbols are not only real, but tempting.