There was supposed to be someone else, some other band that blazed through the path Sleater-Kinney made, some fiery young upstarts who took up that banner and made us true believers, set the awful world right, stamping and railing under those stage lights, loosing that feminist fury, and earning the right to rule upon us in hot waves of punk pummel. Instead, we were left with a Sleater-Kinney-shaped hole in our musical cosmos for nearly a decade. Like Fugazi, Nirvana, or Bad Brains before them—so singular a force, so powerfully perfect—there was no replicating what or who they were.

They ghosted as America's last truly great punk band, the last bridge out of Something Pure—an indomitable, baleful force, born of pre-Internet Riot Grrrl polemics and Olympia DIY as much as a refusal to be hemmed by the dogmatic rules of those schools. They were the girl rock stars that boys respected, too, as they legitimized everyone's lives, peacocking their ambition with solos and stage moves. Their existence was political as much as their band was fun; they served as a revivifying re-enforcement of resistance, pissed dissenters in an era pocked by war, corporate creep, and high irony. They cared.

Their early discography was stripped of blandishment and filled with songs that had the cause of duty. Their music was their way to argue, to assert one’s right to exist, to coalesce an insurgency, to give the girls and the queer kids and the weirdos the language and anthems they needed. Their shows were ecstatic, sure, but they were serious, purposed—when this band came unhinged in a song or onstage, it was torrential, an act of abandon; explosion as an expression of power.

So now that they’re back, the question becomes: Are they still that band?