WILD FLAGWILD FLAG

Wild Flag

[Merge]

Between records and tours with their main bands—Sleater-Kinney, Helium and the Minders, among them—the members of supergroup Wild Flag have spent the last decade working together on various side projects, dabbling in everything from ’60s garage to ’90s alternative while always maintaining a punk-rock ethos. Given their curatorial passion for rock music, it’s fitting the ladies open Wild Flag’s debut with “Romance” and “Something Came Over Me,” love songs whose key lyrics—“sound is the blood between us,” “you’re coming through in stereo”—suggest Carrie Brownstein and Mary Timony are singing more about beloved records than people. Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss are best known for the abrasive, often political songs they wrote with Sleater-Kinney, but here keyboardist Rebecca Cole gives even the harsher tunes an almost bubblegum feel. Standout “Endless Talk” grooves like the 1965 hit “Hang on Sloopy,” while “Racehorse” re-imagines the Go-Go’s as grungy Pacific Northwesterners, feminine yet tough. –Kenneth Partridge

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