Thursday, August 28, 2008

Women - Women


I'm convinced that Candian based band Women are doing every thing they can not to be found. It's next to impossible to find these dudes on the internet and I'm beginning to think that Women share the same agent and PR group as Osama bin Laden. Can you think of a more generic band name that will frustrate the shit out of a simple google search? Let's type "Women" ok, we're fucked here as there are only 782,000,000 hits. Let's try "women band" or "band women" ooh, only 5,940,000 hits this time... Ok, let's try "bands who should fire their agent/PR machine" now we have a manageable 42 hits this time, but still no sign of our Canadian noise makers. I'll save you the frustration as the band's website can be found here.

Women continue my frustrations as their album clocks in at about 29.5 minutes and with only 10 songs. Let's further the frustration with the fact that there are 2 songs that are roughly a minute long and 4 songs (including the 2 prior) that clock in under 2 minutes. 'God Bless You', Oh shit I just sneezed over an entire song... I'm thinking that Women have no agent or PR machine as there is no way they would ever release this album as it would be a slap in the face to the modern status-quo of what "suits" think an album should be (12-15 songs clocking in around 45-55 minutes).

Ok, enough of that banter. If you have read up to here and think I don't like this album, think again. Women's Women is the first thing to come around and kick me in my musical behind in several months. Women has become sheer bliss to my ears in that way that only musicians wanting to experiment and try new things can. Women is obviously an album that was written by a musician with no thoughts of commercial viability. In fact, It seems very much like an album written by musicians for musicians. There may be a little too much musical doodling on the album which makes 10 songs really about 6 or 7 in a traditional sense.

Despite what many may see as flaws to Women's approach in this debut should not keep them from giving it a listen. If the short run-time, experimental doodling and lack of traditional song forms bothers you let's be 'glass half full' types here and recognize serious talent and promise for the future. Even if you don't like the musical doodling the more traditional songs are every bit Grade A stuff.

Oh BTW, I'm going to abolish my own no album scoring rule for Robert A/K/A "Bullet" over at Put It In Your Face so that he might actually publish one of my reviews... -8/10

Women - "Group Transport Hall" (Your computer isn't broken, it's 1 minute of bliss)
Women - "Black Rice"
Women - "Lawncare"