Le Tigre
This Island
Release Date: Oct 19, 2004
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Universal
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Album Review: This Island by Le Tigre
Very Good, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
The wails of riot grrrls ages 7 to 77 echoed throughout the music world (and as a result, Internet message boards) when Le Tigre announced that their next release would be on Universal, the complete antithesis to riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna's ethos for over a decade. Longtime devotees waited with baited breath and questions of anticipation as their formidable heroes completed This Island. Would it be nearly as good as the band's previous endeavors? Was Universal picking them up merely to savor the last morsels of the electroclash movement they so sorely (and in some respects, thankfully) missed out on? The answer to both questions is yes and probably.
Based on rating 3/5
Electro-punk trio Le Tigre may well be America's most righteous band: their website features links to everything, from feminist music festivals to a rabbit rescue centre. In the past, however, their drawback has not been deadly earnestness but an inability to replicate their riotous live shows on disc. On their third album, major-label cash and beefier production helps New Kicks' stirring anti-war rhetoric and Viz - sadly not a tribute to the comic that featured Le Tigre prototype Millie Tant and Her Radical Conscience, but a paean to lesbian clubs.