Wild Card

Listen up, Tuff Gurls of the world: you have a new comrade, and shes a real asset to the team. Her name is Kristen Cooper, and she sings lead and plays bass in the Flytraps, a rockin combo from Orange County, California whose first proper album, 2020s Wild Card, is a soul-satisfying blast of hard-rockin attitude, howling guitars, and Coopers flamethrower vocals. Shes far from the first garage punk acolyte who has tapped into her inner Tura Satana, but shes a lot better than most: her articulate snarl shows no mercy and manages to sound dangerous but welcoming on Female of the Species, perverse on Babys a Freak, and hellbent on wild good times on Action. Cooper may be center stage on Wild Card, but her bandmates do more than their share to give her the raw power she needs. Beth Boyd and Chloe Z. Young are a heavyweight tag-team guitar combination, setting up a Wall of Sound that brings together the bands punk, garage, and hard rock influences with high style and enough crunch for a years supply of corn flakes, while drummer Fabian Ruiz manages to not only keep up with these troublemakers, he gives them the fuel to push this music into orbit. You could say that the Flytraps are mining a sound and style that have been around since the Runaways bought their first guitars, and you wouldnt be wrong, but any story can sound fresh if its told in the right way, and Wild Card tells the tale like a master. These 12 songs are a beckoning invitation to all manner of pleasures the authority figures have warned you about, and with Kristen Cooper as their pied piper, the Flytraps will take you on the ride of your life. Bring some bail money and youll be just fine. ~ Mark Deming