The band built a devoted audience on college radio and the indie-rock circuit; it toured arenas with Pearl Jam in 2003. Its last two albums, “One Beat” in 2002 and “The Woods” in 2005, each topped the college-radio charts compiled by CMJ for a full four weeks. “It has been 10 years since ‘The Woods,’ and a lot has changed on the college radio front since then,” Lisa Hresko, editor in chief of CMJ, wrote in an email. “Some of the students staffing college stations were barely in diapers when riot grrrl was smashing glass ceilings. But anyone who hasn’t been eager for Sleater-Kinney’s return just doesn’t realize how much indie rock needs them right now.”

Image Janet Weiss Credit... Chad Batka for The New York Times

Sleater-Kinney songs often have the two guitars chasing each other along jagged trajectories, wrangling back and forth, racing in contrary motion or blitzing with bursts of noise. On the new album, additional layers of guitar and effects bring more barbs. Ms. Tucker’s lead vocals can sound like a banshee wielding a flamethrower. The women’s voices also harmonize, overlap or converge from different directions; the drums kick from below and sometimes erupt. On the new album, as usual, the lyrics have plenty on their mind: love, desire, power, culture, politics, economics, the band itself. “No outline will ever hold us/It’s not a new wave, it’s just you and me,” the women sing in “A New Wave.”

An accidental choice cemented Sleater-Kinney’s sound. In her previous band, the guitar-and-drums duo Heavens to Betsy, Ms. Tucker had only tuned her guitar to itself. When she joined Ms. Brownstein in Sleater-Kinney, they ascertained that Ms. Tucker’s guitar was tuned with its lowest string at C-sharp, not the standard E. They decided to both keep that tuning, which happens to push Ms. Tucker toward the topmost part of her voice.

They are a disparate trio visually and temperamentally. Ms. Brownstein is dark and lean, while Ms. Tucker is fairer and more cherubic-looking than her vocals would suggest. Ms. Weiss doesn’t hide a drummer’s muscles. Ms. Brownstein describes her writing style, not incorrectly, as “loquacious”; Ms. Tucker is more succinct, the one who distills songs into titles like “Gimme Love,” on the new album.

Image Corin Tucker Credit... Chad Batka for The New York Times

Ms. Weiss spoke with fond objectivity of her bandmates over a lunch of organic Italian food. “I definitely try to bridge a gap between them,” she said. “Look at their personalities — they play like that. Corin is so solid and steady, and she does have pretty good timing, and Carrie is all over the place, chomping at the bit. It’s not one of them by themselves, it’s the two of them together that’s making the spark. And I have to somehow find out how to accentuate that spark and make it a fire, to ignite it.