Women - 'Women' (JagJaguwar)

It’s somewhat appropriate that I first stumbled upon Women – yes, very funny – on one of those MP3-based blogs that purport to host hot new full-lengths for the purposes of “previewing”; essentially free music without all the hassle of torrents and file-sharing and whatnot. Appropriate because not only is the band’s name hilariously incompatible with search engines, but the fact that the music contained within this wondrous self-titled LP is a veritable blogger’s delight of influences both new (the likes of Deerhunter, Fleet Foxes) and old (The Velvet Underground, This Heat), filtered together in ways that are simultaneously surprising and thrilling even to this pair of jaded heard-it-all-before ears.

Opening 61-second track ‘Cameras’ lays bare the rest of the record’s mechanics in a manner that only becomes apparent after repeated listens. First time around the clash between itchy percussion, close harmonies and the sort of clattering garage-punk last heard on the No Age record is just too discordant, especially in just over a minute, to sink in. However unlike, say, the recent Of Montreal album (we’re personally still struggling) everything soon clicks. It’s not that we want all our music to sound ordered, neat and easily digestible; but when there’s an underlying order to the chaos, played with all the fervour of the first Liars album, a Beach Boys-esque melody buried under great discord and factory-like scree, then consider us sold. The rest of the album explores these strands to various degrees.

So whilst ‘Lawncare’ lets the harsh mechanical repetition drown out a folksy guitar loop, by the time standout ‘Black Rice’ arrives – a wonderful approximation of surf-pop as written by Bradford Cox, both sad and uplifting  - it does so through the static of the prickly instrumental ‘Woodbine’. The sequencing is another particular strength of the album, a fact also lent significance given the sub-30minutes running time. For every foray into instrumentals – the muso-friendly ‘Sag Harbour Bridge’, the violent waves of ‘Flashlights’ – there’s always a contrast to be found in songs that embrace the warmth of voice (singer Patrick Flegel’s vocals never lack presence, despite veering from mumbles to nonchalant phrasing) and the long-tested indie-friendly method of sounding a bit like Sonic Youth.

‘Women’ never shies from the sonic agenda of contradiction the band has seemingly set itself; influences may rub uncomfortably together at first, but all the bands previously mentioned thrived on such juxtaposition. Already they sound like they could join such an illustrious list, given these year-defining, albeit tantalisingly brief, first steps. The blogger upon whose site I first discovered Women said: “hmmm…get in line with the 37918278(etc) bands doing that”; but that was before he had heard the album. Purchase now, legally.