Imagine you’re in a dream, you hear sounds you can’t make out, phrases you can’t define, and ultimately, when you wake up… everything is a blur.

Then you have just essentially experienced Canada’s WOMEN and their new album Public Strain which will be released September 28 in the US by Flemish Eye. To write this review, I put all of the songs on my iPod, and then went and laid in bed (which is typically not something I do, typically I walk around with the music on my iPod for a few days before I sit down and write what I think about it). What I was met with was an extraordinary and hazy experience, that combination of speechlessness after you hear a good album from start to finish and just the noise and sounds of the album itself.

Public Strain starts off with Can’t You See, a perfect opening track which sets the mood for the rest of the album. As vocalist Patrick Flegel sings the title lyrics, each word fades beautifully into the background almost as if it never existed in the first place. From the opening track comes Heat Distraction, a track, like most of Public Strain that I really can’t make out all of the words to, but is still wonderful to listen to, with its catchy and crisp bass lines.

Midway through the album, everything changed for me. While the first half of the album was garagey and mostly just beautiful static, the transition from Penal Colony into the song Bells was like waking up from the dream. Bells represents where the album picks up, where the drumming becomes tighter and the noises turn into heavy sounds of drums and guitars.

China Steps is a song I really like because of its ability to fuse the first half the album with abrupt and heavy guitar riffs. Drag Open is also another track that mixes heaviness and really solid guitar and drums with endless static. I really like WOMEN’s ability to be really good at both lo-fi and shoegaze and hard rock, to make songs that explore sound and instruments and strange structure instead of just crafting choruses. However, in a strange way, their lyrics are still incredibly melodic, like on Venice Lockjaw which sounds and lyrics make me think of waves rolling over a beach.

Clearly, WOMEN’S music won’t be for everyone. But, me, I give it a 7.1/10.

—–> WOMEN on Facebook, MySpace <—–