Review Summary: Women's masterpiece blends sounds, simple and complex, that conjure up emotions in a number of ways.
Not many musical acts can say they achieved as much in a single album as Women did with their release, Public Strain. Women manages to create very simple songs, but with incredibly complex and layered instrumentation. They perfectly blend the noisy, stripped back, straightforward nature of post-punk and garage rock with the grandiosity and profoundness of psychedelic and noughties indie rock. The album is a concoction of frantic dread and warm bliss. All of this is accomplished without sacrificing a bit of cohesiveness, and without more than a few lyrics even being audibly understandable. Sometimes all a piece of music needs is the right combination of sounds.
Public Strain sets the tone with a somber yet hopeful, psychedelic number, ‘Can’t You See.’ It’s riddled with Velvet Underground-esque strings that transform from discordant and ugly to beautifully harmonious. Vocalists Patrick and Matthew Flegel ambiguously chant the song’s name to a faintly marching bass drum. The simplicity of that chant backed by so much flowing noise creates an air of desperation. The number of implications that could be made with such an ambiguous line immediately intrigues the listener emotionally.
There are many tracks within this album - Penal Colony and Venice Lockjaw in particular - that follow in a similarly atmospheric vein that contrast the blazing hot punk-driven songs like ‘Heat Distraction’ and ‘Drag Open.’ Both of these songs feature noisy discordance reminiscent of Sonic Youth tracks like ‘Cross the Breeze.’ But while ‘Heat Distraction’ ends on a triumphant note, ‘Drag Open’ slowly fizzles to a close. Both tracks capture the fever dream essence that Women so masterfully create with their raw production.
‘Heat Distraction’ and ‘Drag Open’ are followed by ‘Narrow With the Hall’ and ‘Locust Valley’ respectively, each of which show off Women’s inspiration from Television. ‘Locust Valley’ has incredible interweaving guitar parts. It’s one of the more obvious songs on the album, with a much more clear song structure and melody. But this only goes to show the biggest strength of this album.
The real reason this album is so powerful is because it is not in your face with exactly what it’s trying to do. These songs are not “sad” in the traditional sense. They conjure up a mixture of emotions through subtlety. ‘Penal Colony’ doesn’t feel somber because of minor key pianos. It’s because Women creates an atmosphere through layering and production, the likes of with very few bands have ever been able to do in such a precise manner. Radiohead is one example, and Women - more specifically Public Strain - deserve to be recognized on that level of masterful sound creation.
China Steps doesn’t bash your brain the same way a metal album does, it does so through careful, hypnotizing, tension-building repetition much in the same way long dialogue-filled Tarantino scenes build so much tension before things hit the fan.
Everything good about Women’s unique songwriting are showcased in the chill-inducing closer ‘Eyesore’ which features a final act that is the aural equivalent of an emotional triumph, perfectly fitting after the roller-coaster that is the rest of the album. Much like most of Public Strain, it may not be immediately obvious what is so beautiful about this song. But after some amount of listens, you can begin to piece together how the twinkling guitars fit together, and how each part compliments one another. ‘Eyesore’ is a song I’m glad to be alive to experience. It’s a song that is perfect for many situations. It doesn’t overshadow the rest of the album however, because it’s exactly what it all builds up to. It’s a song that stands strong on its own, and is only further solidified by its context on the album.
Public Strain is very much a question mark of an album. It only really makes sense within the head of the listener. And while this may be cliche to say, it’s absolutely true of this album - it can’t be described with words. It’s not an album that particularly fits in the 2010’s, despite it displaying some amount of recognizable influence. It defies classification, but it doesn’t care, and I’m not even sure if Women did it on purpose. The listener can dig for some meaning behind the obscured lyrics and instrumentals, but the only real conclusion one can make is that it may not have any meaning or purpose at all - only you can make sense of it within the context of your own experiences. Ultimately that’s not what matters though, whether it makes sense, whether it’s given context, whether it serves a specific purpose. What does matter is that it conjures up emotions in a way that few pieces of music have ever done.
