There can be precious few bands for whom, whilst still firmly lodged on Central Daylight Time, I would pilgrimage straight from Heathrow Terminal 3 to Manchester’s unimaginably beautiful Albert Hall, although few can possibly be as precious to me – and many another with me – as Sleater-Kinney. The Olympia, Washington three-piece comprising Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss have not only (relatively) newly reformed, but have returned visibly rejuvenated; their vim undiminished as an audience sporting such core ethea and/ or mottos as ‘Feminist as Fuck’ brims with as many shrieks as it does shouts. Indeed, it’s been some years since a more gender-diversified multitude was last seen at a show of this size; or by this pair of bleary, wearied eyes, at the very least…

And so, as a backdrop akin to deadened skin flaking off a freshly inked tattoo flutters to the verbatim, visceral opening salvo that is Price Tag and Fangless, from January’s sublime No Cities to Love, hearts and heads do likewise with the front rows swept up in an irrepressible frenzy of sweat and sheer bliss combined. The daddy long-legged Brownstein proves a blackened typhoon of fucking vigorous fury, with the trio ably backed by Katie Harkin of Sky Larkin who, whether keenly swinging a white tambourine or swigging from a bottle of Stella when understudying, understandably comports herself with all the wide-eyed relish of a precocious kid cherry-picked out first in the playground.

Peroxide blonde abounds, but it’s Tucker – stationed stage-left – who’s unanticipatedly, if not almost unprecedentedly central right throughout. And her primordial holler proves all the more impactive than Brownstein’s terse, desiccated sneer, with Oh! – a first from eras further afield – another thoroughly riotous tour de force. The yodelled, duelling Get Up somewhat predictably inspires widespread euphoria, while the similarly blistering Ironclad answers what is, based on the reaction engendered, a somewhat rhetorical question (thus: “Who do you love?”) in pretty emphatic fashion. The gambolling, runaway Light Rail Coyote instead sounds more like the blueprint for so much of Reading and Leeds Festivals’ alt. histories than ever previously, the irony of which can be lost on nobody to have publicly lambasted the Festival Republic bash for neglecting to book more than a mere handful of females this year, with Jumpers subsequently a comparably boisterous number. Evidence enough to suggest Melvin Benn et al. really ought to have booked Carrie, Corin and Janet for their August bank holiday bender? You betcha…

Not least because essentially, and in spite of what can prove an inexplicably mixed response at times, it’s material taken from No Cities to Love which fares best. These songs are far and away the best of this particular bunch in fact, with the slippery, slaughterous A New Wave – during which Brownstein duly becomes unmistakably focal – and the deeply pulsating Surface Envy both obliterative and brilliant likewise. Carrie again takes the lead on No Cities to Love, the pendulum momentarily shifting from stage-left to -right, and while it’s neither the notoriously inglorious weather, nor necessarily the people based on what is admittedly, another rather ambivalent reaction that they love about this “fair city”, it makes for an eminently likeable number at the absolute least.

Absolutely lethal, meanwhile, is the wondrously synergic Bury Our Friends; a song that’s commensurately symbiotic to more seasoned elders such as the aforementioned Light Rail Coyote and Jumpers. Weiss has her moments of mesmeric allure as well – namely the rambunctious, lung-puncturing drum solo to inaugurate Entertain, and the coarse harmonica strains to further texture a rendition of Modern Girl that, backed by “the best singing of the entire tour”, borders on brazen anthemia – although the trio, as a unified and unifying whole, amounts to far more than the mere sum of its component parts. They are, by their own admission, “so happy to be back as a band” and it shows as transparently as Tucker’s plea, “Gimme respect; gimme equality; Gimme Love.” This, in and of itself, suggests they’re anything but “out of touch” today; and that in spite of so protracted a period of time away…

And tonight is both discernibly and bracingly different from the usual reunion shows, in that not only do they still view this as necessary endeavour (and visibly so), but they’ve also returned with what may well be their very best record to date in tow. Tonight, the sound is all the more robust, full and with it fulfilling when it comes to more recent material; and this seemingly isn’t merely due to the intermittent emergences of Harkin, much as she may help. No; the overwhelming emotion to be taken from tonight is that of genuine rejuvenation. And the result is one ferocious, uproarious and, ultimately, victorious performance.