What's the fuzz?

The Woods

* Sleater-Kinney * Sub Pop

In the song "Entertain" midway through Sleater-Kinney's seventh album, the group launches a taunting assault on unnamed enemy bands, singing derisively, "You did nothing new with 1972." Sleater-Kinney, on the other hand, are masters at updating music history. The Woods, which is being rightly hailed as a breakthrough for the Portland, Ore., threesome, mines the hard rock and heavy psychedelia of the early '70s (Zeppelin, Creedence), and takes classic rock for a passionate, distorted bumper-car ride into the future. With singer Corin Tucker's Robert Plant--esque screams and guitarist Carrie Brownstein's Hendrix-inspired storms of feedback, this is the band's most accomplished album yet.