What does it mean that one of the strongest, freshest, and most vital voices in punk rock in the year 2020 is a 61-year-old author and retired educator?
Alice Bag had decades of diverse life experiences and a legacy as one of the founding figures of L.A. punk rock when she cut her first solo album, Alice Bag, in 2016. But on 2020's
Sister Dynamite, she sounds tougher than ever and utterly fearless, with a sense of purpose and no reluctance about speaking her truth. While Alice Bag and 2018's Blueprint were stylistically eclectic offerings that bounced from punk to pop to folk,
Sister Dynamite is leaner and meaner, a rock & roll session bubbling with punk ferocity from beginning to end, and lyrically and vocally,
Bag is the definition of empowerment. Feminism was a major lyrical theme on her first two albums, and it takes center stage on
Sister Dynamite, along with
Bag's bisexuality, which she explicitly addresses on "Spark" and "Switch Hitter," and in these songs the personal is political, and vice-versa. Every one of these tunes is a joyous cry of freedom and self-determination, and
Bag and her collaborators aren't afraid to make them sound as anthemic as they ought to be. These are messages that doubtless speak to many generations of women (and more than a few men), and
Bag is clearly not singing to just her fellow punk rock veterans: this is bracing rock & roll full of righteous fury and excitement, and anyone with a taste for the right kind of rebellion will find something to love here.
Alice Bag's return to action is not just one of the great musical comeback stories of the 2020s, it has marked the unexpected arrival of a major artist, and
Sister Dynamite is her third out-of-the-park home run in a row. ~ Mark Deming