The downtimes between Sleater-Kinney albums has been increasing for the past couple of years. All Hands On The Bad One came out a scant fifteen months after The Hot Rock; and after a fairly lengthy tour the band decided it was going on break—how long, they didn’t really know. Turns out the hiatus was just over a year, and One Beat came in 2002. Ever since that tour ended, however, there had been an ominous silence from the Sleater-Kinney camp. With a decade-long career under their belts, Corin Tucker’s first child and criticism that One Beat didn’t do enough to evolve their sound, it would’ve seemed fair if Sleater-Kinney had decided to call it quits.

Turns out calling it quits wasn’t exactly what they had in mind. The Kill Rock Stars site had stopped giving us any updates whatsoever on Sleater-Kinney because they’d decided to move to Sub Pop, a bit of news that dropped in October. Since then, there’s been a flurry of activity—Pacific Northwest tour dates, a show at SXSW, and now a release date for the as-yet-untitled album: May 24, 2005. No one’s giving any clues as to what the new material sounds like (unless you managed to catch their NYE show with the Flaming Lips and Wilco, where they apparently played quite a bit of new material), but all indications point to a concerted attempt to try something new. Will it work? I’ve already got my Vancouver ticket, and will report to you shortly.