aaamusic | On 10, Oct 2011

Wild Flag are like an imaginary supergroup invention of a hardcore indie fan. Consisting of  former Sleater-Kinney players Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss,  Helium’s Mary Timony, and Rebacca Cole of The Minders this quartet sound like they have been playing together all their lives. Their album, self titled “Wild Flag” released on Oct 13 is their debut album together, the only give away to their past careers being the self assured confidence in their music and the quality of their playing.

 

“Romance” is a rhymthmic tune,  with searing guitars and a chorus that see’s the girls chanting together “We dance to free ourselves from the room/We love the sound, the sound is what found us”. Along with the expected intense, guitar fuelled rock anthems such as “black Tiles” and

“Racehose” they also show a more laid back rock sound with duelling guitars and layred harmonies in “Glass Tambourine”.

 

With this record Wild Flags had an extremely difficult task to accomplish- to win over fans who had very high expectations based on the previous musical projects of Wild Flags members. At the same time, it was important for Wild Flag to create music that didn’t sound too similar to the sound of any of their old bands. Inevitably, there have been some comparisons with Wild Fag and mush loved Sleater-Kearney and while the temptation might be to pick out parts where they sound similar , the truth is that  despite previous musical experiences Wild Flag are a new band and have delivered a truly stunning debut that will no doubt be one of the best rock releases of the year.

 

Author: Orna Lyons