The Portland, Ore., trio Sleater-Kinney — Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss — formed in 1994 when college roommates Tucker and Brownstein began recording songs in their bedroom in Olympia, Wash. Seven albums later, they have one of the most-respected legacies in independent rock. Though they never broke through to a mainstream audience, they were an inspiration to countless bands.

"They might bristle at this, because they've heard this a million times, but the importance of what they've done for women in rock music is second to none," says Tony Kiewel, who signed the band to Sub Pop Records two years ago for what would be their final album, "The Woods." "They've opened a lot of doors for women. They've also shown that you can not only age gracefully but evolve in surprising ways and achieve things beyond the obvious goal of pushing in new directions.

The adventurous new album reaches a new peak of focused passion, fused with increasingly accomplished musicianship.

Initially inspired by the riot grrrl movement, a loose coalition of female artists who advocated empowerment on a range of social, political and cultural issues, Tucker and Brownstein quickly evolved as songwriters. They named their bedroom band after the road on which they practiced in Olympia, and eventually enlisted a drummer but never bothered to add a bassist. The trio's second album, "Call the Doctor" (Chainsaw Records, 1996), emphatically stamped them as a ferocious rock band.

Corey Rusk, the founder of Touch and Go Records, says the record obliterated what should have been obvious decades before: the notion that there should be a separate standard for rock bands based on gender. "That album was amazing," he says. "It was exactly what I needed to hear that year, maybe because I wasn't hearing enough great rock music anywhere else."

Sleater-Kinney leaves behind one of the best seven-album runs in rock history.