The first thing I think of when I hear the sound of Women is thick snow, covered by fog yet falling in such great silence that it obliterates any other sound, even the loudest of voices reduced to a whisper under the dark skies and bleak white streets. The other thing I think of is what could’ve been, the band’s discography is painfully small with just two albums and an ep of rarities. The projects that came in its wake such as the hypnagonic crooning of lead singer Pat Flegel as Cindy Lee, or the obliterating gothic post-punk of bassist Matt Flegel and drummer Mike Wallace’s Preoccupations are just fragments of their sound. Each offers glimpses of Women’s noise-pop meets experimental post-punk perfection but fails to truly synthesize to the now-dead band’s greatness.

That final ingredient, the glue to keep the pieces together was almost certainly the late great Chris Reimer whose droning totalistic guitar work created a thick layer of distortion that eternalised each track like the ashes of Vesuvius upon the Pompeians. It was with his passing that Women truly died.

But still, what’s left behind is more than worth admiring. Often forgotten by major press yet still influential and admired by a devoted cult following Women’s final album, Public Strain isn’t merely one of the best indie albums of its time but one of the best albums of all time.

Despite being caked in feedback Public Strain is not a record of abrasion but instead of twist comfort. The 60s mono-pop melodies of the opener ‘Can’t You See’ highlight this best. At once comforting and skin crawling, Pat Flegels shrinking voice as he echoes out the repeated mantra ‘can’t you see’ tempts you to sleep only for the rising guitars and piercing violin melody to transform the lullaby into a warning siren for an encroaching storm.
That storm might be Mike Wallace on drums, his thrashing yet steady rhythms recalling the krautrock of Neu and the explosive experimental punk of Swell Maps in equal measure. His drumming combines with the throbbing bass work of Matt Flegel to create a steady rhythm section on which Pat and Reimer paint a bleak angular portrait. While often droning their guitar work can quickly take on a dueling quality such as on the excellent ‘China Steps’, the two guitarists sound at war with each other. Pats vocals drown out overhead as the dueling guitars serrate until suddenly interrupted by blasts of percussion from the drums like lighting piercing across a battlefield.

Despite this proclivity for sonic destruction, Public Strain remains so re-listenable because of its bizarrely tender beating heart. As ear-splitting as it can get on its more no-wave indebted moments such as the head-banging ‘Drag Open’ or the bleak drone of ‘Bells’ the true heart of Public Strain is one of tender melancholy. It rears its head on the soft-spoken kraut pop of ‘Untogether’ the tender bleak folk balladry of ‘Venice Lockjaw’ and especially the final track ‘Eyesore’.

‘Eyesore’ may be Women’s greatest musical statement, one oddly enough released as a lead single despite its place at the end of their catalog. While most of Public Strain can sound hidden away by its Lofi production and droning guitar eyesore is immediate. While previously the guitars dueled they seem now to work together in a beautiful symphony building and building as Pat’s lyrics take on shades of simple melancholy. Yet in the second half the song bursts through dinking deep into despair before emerging as Pat sings out ‘overboard ahead of me/you’re not lying next to me’ a simple statement of pure melancholy repeated as the band works at peak form constructing a sonic cathedral of pure pop despair.

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