The Hot Rock.

What's so thrilling about Sleater-Kinney is the way these unlikely lesbian heroes rise to the mucous occasion so that you'll give each acrid note your undivided attention. Every sound leaps into the aural foreground. Two guitars twang and slam against each other, their strings tuned to maximize discord. Rhythms stop and start. Edgy voices--one deadpan, the other a wailing vibrato, like a kamikaze Belinda Carlisle--take you on a high-velocity teeter-totter ride. Notes are missed, but emotions hit their mark from their hearts to your hips.

And because Sleater-Kinney's aim is so true, so unfettered by mediocrity or monetary concerns, the band makes its deceptively simple sonic scrawl matter.

The Hot Rock, the trio's latest album, isn't drastically different from its cult-creating predecessors. The passion pouring from lead singer Corin Tucker, lead guitarist Carrie Brownstein, and drummer Janet Weiss can still scorch, but the Gang of Four-conscious arrangements suggest a newfound delicacy behind the din. Yo La Tengo producer Roger Moutenot brings a clarity that presents the band with more intimacy and immediacy than ever. Despite the occasional violin or percussive instrument, it all remains raw: live and alive.

Imperfections are accordingly part of the album. "The Size of Our Love" suggests the weighty topic of lesbian breast cancer with unnerving poeticism ("Our love is the size of these tumors inside us"), but Brownstein's vocal is flat, inconsequential. Worthy words are elsewhere lost in sighs and mumbles. But when Tucker shifts from seductive speaker to simile screamer on "Get Up," you can sense the sleeping beauty of rock stirring from her slumber and putting on combat boots.

Walters is a pop-music critic for The Advocate.