Like most red-blooded American males with the slightest interest in quality music, my friend Schnitz and I have this ongoing debate over which member of Sleater-Kinney is cuter. He claims it's Corin ("Just look at those eyes!" he keeps saying), but I prefer Carrie. And having finally seen Sleater- Kinney in concert, I can definitely say that Carrie is both "the cute Kinney" and "the cool Kinney". It's kinda like the Beatles: Carrie is the cool and cute Paul to Corin's smart, stoic John. Which I guess makes Janet either George or Ringo. (Sorry about that, Janet, but someone's gotta be Ringo...)

So it would appear that Carrie has teamed up with Helium's Mary Timony to form the Spells for a one-off EP called The Age of Backwards. Sounds promising, right? Until you extend the Beatles metaphor further, and realize that if Sleater-Kinney are the Beatles, then the Spells would be Wings. Which would then make Corin's other project Cadallaca some John and Yoko collaboration, probably Double Fantasy... okay, perhaps I should save everyone vast amounts amounts of grief and head-scratching and quit the Beatles metaphor while I'm still behind.

Anyway, when songwriters from bands like Sleater-Kinney and Helium get together, everyone would hope for some really cool, elegant mix of the two bands' sounds. And indeed, The Age of Backwards does sound pretty much like you'd expect it to. Unfortunately, it's readily apparent that neither Carrie or Mary are trying especially hard. Even for an EP, it's a fairly slim effort-- four songs, eight and a half minutes-- and it practically screams of that "recorded in one day at the apartment" underachievement. But it's especially telling that the best track here is a Who cover. Let's be honest: Carrie may be cute and she may be cool, but slacking just isn't her style.

-Nick Mirov