The Sleater-Kinney singer-guitarist has essentially the most distinctive wail within the music, heavy on vibrato, always controlled even when she’s conveying emotional torrent. Her bandmate Carrie Brownstein, in her memoir, described Tucker’s voice as “a wail not of mourning however of homicide. And there was a lot I needed to destroy.” But there’s much more than sheer energy — on the Corin Tucker Band’s 1,000 Years, for example, she’s simply as expressive, and interesting, at a extra contained quantity. With the Cure, he’s a grasp of breathy intimacy and erotic wit, as if he’s confiding secrets by candlelight, even when he’s singing about cats and spiders. He works his mopey voice into a powerfully expressive instrument, whether or not he’s going for sexy distress (“Close to Me”), self-mocking distress (“Let’s Go to Bed”), or depressing distress (“One Hundred Years”).

The genre became mainstream after the release of the single “Blue …

