There’s a reason music obsessives keep returning to Women, the Calgary-based post-punk quartet that existed from 2007 to 2011. Formed by brothers Patrick and Matt Flegel alongside guitarist Chris Reimer and drummer Mike Wallace, Women produced some of the most hauntingly original guitar music of the 2000s indie rock era. Across their self-titled debut (2008), their critically acclaimed Public Strain (2010), a rare 7″ single, and the posthumous Rarities 2007–2010 (2020), the band crafted a catalog that still sounds unlike anything else. Whether you’re listening through quality headphones that reveal every layer of reverb or discovering them for the first time, this guide to the best songs of Women band will take you through every essential track.
Eyesore
If you only ever hear one Women song, it should be “Eyesore.” Released as the sole single from Public Strain in September 2010 on Jagjaguwar, this closing track opens with four arresting snare hits before Chris Reimer’s guitar cuts in with a precision that critics compared to a Japanese kitchen knife — impossibly delicate and violently jagged at the same time. The song lacks a traditional chorus and instead builds through what Pitchfork’s Larry Fitzmaurice named “Best New Track,” structured around open-string ringing and wide melodic intervals that seem to expand the longer you listen. Retrospective assessments from Sputnikmusic and Gorilla vs. Bear have called it a floating opus and an outright masterpiece — and listening on a quiet night with headphones, it genuinely feels like the walls dissolve.
Black Rice
“Black Rice” was many listeners’ first encounter with Women, and what an introduction it was. From their 2008 self-titled debut produced by Chad VanGaalen on Flemish Eye/Jagjaguwar, the song straddles a 1960s divide between the Velvet Underground’s New York cynicism and the fey psychedelic pop of UK groups like the Zombies — a description Pitchfork used in their original coverage. The guitar melody is infectiously odd, lo-fi in its production values yet anchored by a hook that lodges itself somewhere behind your eyes and refuses to leave. It set the template for everything Women would do: subverted pop instincts buried under reverb and tape hiss, delivered with total conviction.
Sag Harbor Bridge
Clocking in at just one minute and forty seconds, “Sag Harbor Bridge” from the 2008 self-titled album is a masterclass in brevity. The song is a subtle reference to the late artist Ray Johnson — Sag Harbor Bridge is where Johnson was last seen before his death — which gives the track a quietly elegiac weight that its sparse arrangement amplifies rather than explains. VanGaalen’s production captures a delicate interplay of guitar shimmer and understated melody, the kind of song that rewards headphone listening because its quieter textures are easily swallowed by ambient noise. In a catalog full of dense, layered recordings, “Sag Harbor Bridge” stands out precisely for what it leaves out.
Narrow With the Hall
Pitchfork’s Martin Douglas named this one “Best New Track” when Public Strain arrived in 2010, and the recognition was deserved. “Narrow With the Hall” is noted for its minimal chord usage, the brothers Flegel’s eerily interlocked vocal harmonies, deliberate feedback deployment, and a vintage 1960s sonic palette that somehow feels completely fresh. The restraint in the arrangement is extraordinary — there’s so much space between notes that the song almost breathes — and that space is where the tension lives. For anyone building out a playlist to explore the best songs by category, this track belongs in any conversation about 21st-century post-punk perfection.
Lawncare
“Lawncare” from the 2008 debut occupies a strange and wonderful space in Women’s catalog. It’s one of the tracks that Cokemachineglow’s review cited as an example of Women’s spidery, off-kilter riffing — guitar lines that stagger cockeyed through a song like someone walking a tightrope while deliberately wobbling. Recorded in VanGaalen’s basement and across a culvert and a crawl space over four months using ghetto blasters and old tape machines, the lo-fi production gives “Lawncare” a texture that feels genuinely lived-in, like a cassette found in a forgotten drawer. The song balances claustrophobic noise with moments of unexpected lightness, which is basically Women’s whole thesis statement compressed into three minutes.
Shaking Hand
The debut album’s longest and most hypnotic track at nearly five minutes, “Shaking Hand” demonstrates Women’s ability to turn a repeated motif into something genuinely mesmerizing. The guitar work here draws on that same Velvet Underground influence — drone-based, slightly detuned, insistently rhythmic — but the Flegel brothers’ production instincts keep it from ever feeling like imitation. There’s a looseness to the live-in-the-room recording quality that makes “Shaking Hand” feel like catching the band mid-rehearsal, which is oddly intimate and compelling. It holds up beautifully on headphones where the stereo separation of the twin guitar lines becomes something close to spatial audio.
Upstairs
“Upstairs,” from the 2008 debut, is one of Women’s most quietly unsettling songs. The track moves with a creeping, unhurried pace, its melody circling rather than resolving, and the production — all tape warmth and slight degradation — turns what might have been a simple indie pop song into something genuinely disquieting. The title alone does a lot of work, evoking a specific kind of domestic tension that the music mirrors perfectly. It’s the sort of track that rewards patient listeners: there’s a chord change about two-thirds through that, once you hear it, changes the entire emotional meaning of everything before it.
Group Transport Hall
At just over a minute long, “Group Transport Hall” from the 2008 debut is more of a sonic sketch than a conventional song — but it’s one of the most evocative one-minute pieces in the post-punk canon. The title is another reference to Ray Johnson, the American mail art pioneer whom Women clearly venerated, and the track’s abstract, clipped quality mirrors Johnson’s own cut-and-paste aesthetic. VanGaalen’s production gives the track an almost field-recording immediacy, like something captured accidentally rather than composed. Fans loved it so much that an alternate version appeared on the 2020 Rarities 2007–2010 collection, with many stating it was their favorite track on that release.
Everyone Is So In Love With You
When Jagjaguwar and Flemish Eye reissued Public Strain in October 2020 with the Rarities 2007–2010 companion collection, “Everyone Is So In Love With You” was the previously unheard track that stopped listeners in their tracks. Announced as the lead preview, the song carries the shimmering, harmony-laden quality of the best Public Strain material — Patrick and Matt Flegel’s vocals interweaving in that characteristic way critics described as ethereal — while feeling somehow warmer and more approachable than some of their more abrasive work. It’s the kind of discovery that makes you grateful archival material exists; this song deserved to be heard a decade earlier.
Bells
Positioned fifth on Public Strain, “Bells” serves as an anchor point between the album’s more guitar-driven tracks and its atmospheric passages, described as an integral track that holds the record’s emotional architecture together. Built around reverberating bass and densely textured production, the song owes more to dark ambient music than conventional rock, and that tonal shift is precisely what makes Public Strain such a cohesive and rewarding listen. The way “Bells” flows into “China Steps” — from drone to motorik immediacy — is one of the great sequential track pairings in 2010s indie rock. If you want to hear this sequence in its full fidelity, a pair of quality earbuds with good bass response is the way to go.
Drag Open
Critics compared “Drag Open” to Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and it’s easy to hear why — the track is considered one of the loudest and most abrasive moments on Public Strain, a wall of guitar noise that arrives mid-album like a sudden thunderstorm after a cool afternoon. The production, recorded largely outside at VanGaalen’s insistence, gives the distortion an unusual, organic quality: it sounds like the volume of nature rather than the volume of a studio. What keeps “Drag Open” from becoming mere noise exercise is its underlying structure — there’s a rhythmic logic to Mike Wallace’s drumming that keeps everything grounded even as the guitars dissolve into feedback.
Heat Distraction
“Heat Distraction” is Public Strain‘s second track, opening with what Cokemachineglow described as a sudden, jerky riff — caustic and off-balance in the most deliberate way. The song contains uncommon key and time signature changes, beginning in 13/8 before shifting, and it drew comparisons to both Sonic Youth and Swell Maps from contemporary critics. Structurally, it’s one of the most compositionally adventurous tracks in the Women catalog: they’re not just writing odd songs, they’re engineering tonal unease with the precision of people who’ve studied why certain sounds make the skin prickle. The song is an argument that technical complexity and raw emotion don’t have to be opposites.
China Steps
If you want to argue that there were still genuinely new things to do with electric guitars in 2010, “China Steps” is your exhibit A. Cokemachineglow called it one of the band’s finest songs and one of the decade’s most convincing assertions that there are still cool, violent things left to be done with guitars. The track’s motorik beat draws on Krautrock tradition — think Can, think Neu! — while the guitar work is distinctly Women: angular, slightly detuned, building toward a crescendo that perpetually defers resolution. That sustained tension is where the song lives, and on headphones, the stereo field of the guitars becomes almost cinematic.
Venice Lockjaw
“Venice Lockjaw” takes its title from a phrase used by Ray Johnson in pins he distributed at the 1990 Venice Biennale — which tells you everything about the kind of art-informed, oblique references Women embedded throughout Public Strain. The song itself is the album’s most tender moment: noted for its angelic melody and twinkling arpeggios, it has been described as the Velvet Underground raised up from graves to woo the stars. Positioned as the penultimate track before “Eyesore,” it functions as a necessary emotional exhale. The vocal harmonies between Patrick and Matt Flegel here are among the most beautiful moments in their entire discography.
Penal Colony
One of the more remarkable facts about “Penal Colony” is that its guitar track was originally not going to be used — the band decided to keep it on a whim, and it became one of Public Strain‘s most beloved tracks. The song is a subdued ballad, and Flemish Eye Records described it as evidence that Women could bury their way down into the heart just as effectively as they could aim for the head. The recording, made partly outside due to VanGaalen’s preference for outdoor tracking, has a soft, airy quality that makes the intimacy feel genuine rather than performed. Cokemachineglow called it utterly inhabitable — an apt description.
Locust Valley
Critics consistently identify “Locust Valley” as one of the more melodic and lyrically intelligible tracks on Public Strain, and here their characteristic haze lifts just enough to let in genuine warmth. The title references the New York town where Ray Johnson lived, completing a thematic through-line with “Venice Lockjaw” and “Sag Harbor Bridge” that spans all three major releases. Musically, “Locust Valley” functions as a kind of clearing in a dense forest: after the noise and abrasion of “Drag Open,” it offers something closer to conventional indie melody, executed with the same meticulous care that Women brought to everything they made.
Grey Skies
Released as the B-side to the “Service Animal” 7″ in 2010 and later included on Rarities 2007–2010, “Grey Skies” is a pleasantly disorienting track: despite its title, it sounds like any color other than grey. The song is laid-back and delicate where “Service Animal” is abrasive, the two tracks forming a perfect A/B contrast that exemplifies Women’s tonal range. One reviewer described it as pure bliss and suggested it would pair perfectly with a stroll through the park on a cloudless day — which sounds right, despite the quiet melancholy undercurrent beneath its sunny surface.
Service Animal
Released on a limited 7″ alongside “Grey Skies” in 2010, “Service Animal” is one of those rare-find discoveries that makes you wish it had simply been part of the official album. Categorized as lo-fi indie rock with experimental leanings, it carries the feel of a Public Strain outtake — the same abrasive-but-controlled guitar work, the same slightly abstracted vocal delivery, the same production quality that sounds expensive in the way great lo-fi always paradoxically does. Fans on the Rarities 2007–2010 Bandcamp page listed it as a favorite track, and its inclusion on the 2020 reissue finally gave it the wider audience it deserved.
Bullfight
“Bullfight” is one of the tracks from the 2020 Rarities 2007–2010 collection that most surprised longtime fans — it arrived out of nowhere and demonstrated that Women’s unreleased material was more than mere archive-clearing. The track has the raw, live-room energy of the debut album combined with the sonic sophistication that characterized Public Strain, suggesting it may have been recorded in the transitional period between the two. Like the best of Women’s catalog, it rewards close listening: there are textural details buried in the mix that only emerge after several plays, especially through quality headphones that can separate the frequency layers.
Flashlights
“Flashlights” closes the 2008 self-titled debut and does exactly what a great closing track should: it synthesizes everything the album has done and sends you back to the beginning wanting more. At three minutes and forty-two seconds, it’s one of the longer tracks on the debut, and the extra running time gives the guitars room to explore the kind of drone-based extended passages that would become central to Public Strain‘s identity. Recorded during those famous four months across VanGaalen’s basement and various improvised recording spaces, “Flashlights” has a warmth and spaciousness that feels earned — a glimpse of late afternoon light at the end of a record that spends most of its time in strange and shadowy rooms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the band Women?
Women was a Canadian indie rock and post-punk quartet formed in Calgary, Alberta in late 2007, consisting of brothers Patrick Flegel (vocals, guitar) and Matt Flegel (bass, vocals), alongside Chris Reimer (guitar, vocals) and Michael Wallace (drums). They released two studio albums — a self-titled debut in 2008 and Public Strain in 2010 — both produced by Chad VanGaalen and released on Flemish Eye Records in Canada and Jagjaguwar in the United States. The band disbanded in 2011, and guitarist Chris Reimer passed away in 2012. Their catalog has earned significant retrospective acclaim, with Public Strain frequently listed among the best albums of the 2010s decade.
What albums did Women release?
Women released two full studio albums: their self-titled debut Women in October 2008 and Public Strain in August 2010. They also released a limited 7″ single featuring “Service Animal” and “Grey Skies” in 2010. In October 2020, Jagjaguwar and Flemish Eye reissued Public Strain with an accompanying five-track Rarities 2007–2010 collection featuring previously unreleased and hard-to-find material including “Everyone Is So In Love With You,” “Bullfight,” and alternate recordings.
What is Women’s most famous song?
“Eyesore,” the closing track from Public Strain, is widely considered Women’s most celebrated song. Released as the album’s sole single in September 2010 on Jagjaguwar, it was named “Best New Track” by Pitchfork’s Larry Fitzmaurice and has received consistent critical praise in retrospective assessments of the 2010s decade. Sputnikmusic ranked Public Strain the third best album of the decade and specifically highlighted “Eyesore” as a standout. “Black Rice” from the debut album is also frequently cited as an essential entry point for new listeners.
Who produced Women’s albums?
Both Women studio albums were produced by Chad VanGaalen, a Calgary-based musician and fellow Flemish Eye Records artist who recorded the debut in his basement studio. The self-titled album was famously recorded over four months using ghetto blasters, old tape machines, outdoor culverts, and a crawl space. Public Strain was recorded in VanGaalen’s new studio space called Yoko Eno, with much of the album tracked outdoors at VanGaalen’s insistence, giving it a raw and distinctive sonic character.
What genres do Women’s songs fall into?
Women have been classified across several overlapping genres including post-punk, indie rock, noise rock, and art rock. Their debut album leans more toward lo-fi noise rock with clear Velvet Underground and psychedelic pop influences, while Public Strain expands into art rock, dark ambient, and Krautrock territory — particularly evident on tracks like “China Steps” and “Bells.” Critics have also compared them to Caribou, No Age, Sonic Youth, Swell Maps, and This Heat.
Is Women’s music still available to stream?
Yes, Women’s full discography including both studio albums, the Rarities 2007–2010 collection, and individual singles is available on major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp via the official womenband.bandcamp.com page. The 2020 reissue of Public Strain also made several previously rare tracks widely available for the first time, including “Everyone Is So In Love With You” and “Bullfight.”