Women

Public Strain improves on Women in every way, which is no small feat. It's 13 minutes long than its predecessor, but Women doesn't use the extra time to spread out. The band keeps the tension up by building the various lean sounds of that record into new, more muscular variations.

A lock for most promising debut of '08.

Women present a fresh lo-fi landmark that sounds like it was made in your garage before getting packed-up for a Sunday picnic in the park--well fused, lads.

The erratic nature of this album makes it a near perfect soundtrack for these troubled times, where no one is quite sure what awaits around the next corner.

Awkward, youthful moments exist, but Women tire of them almost before you do. What's left are the best of post-punk ingredients: curiosity, noise, and sly artifice.

Women may not be easy listening, but it is rewarding listening.

Ultimately there's so many ideas vying for attention on this album that there is not enough room for its songs to breathe. And the discordant styles, some of them on their own of much merit, never truly mesh together.

Fans of Deerhoof and the Brian Jonestown Massacre's "My Bloody Underground" should be blown away by Women, and it's only their debut. They have real promise.

For the most part, the band gets in and out of a song without falling into noise wankery, almost as if they couldn't wait to get into the next idea.

Minimalist guitar work (it brings to mind the tonic-based, repetitive structures of later Don Caballero), tape-distressed drums, and banged metal work together to reduce the album's throwback feel and give an edge to the sing-alongs. Too often, however, the band either let these sounds overwhelm the songs or cobble them into throw-away vignettes that interrupt the otherwise drifting cadences.

Produced by VanGaalen, this record explores a whole host of interesting sonic ideas, which keeps things nicely unpredictable.

Some more like-minded collaborators might raise the temperature. [Feb 2009, p.112]

This album is overflowing with ideas that the band don't have the means--or, indeed, the patience--to explore fully. [Feb 2009, p.85]