Alice Armendariz is best known as Alice Bag—she got her name and her fame as the uncompromising singer of the Bags, one of the best of L.A.’s late ‘70s Dangerhouse-era bands. But lately Bag has roared back into action with a new crew of musicians and some of her sharpest—or bluntest, depending on which style works best—work yet. Her almost-out Blueprint is her second solo album, and while lead single “77” sounds like a ’77 song, especially with the revved-up guitar solo, it’s really about the gender-based wage gap. Like her last album, Blueprint backs Bag with (even more than ever) punks of various generations, and the result is a zig-zag from punk to power-pop to the dance-y “Shame Game” and the urgent “White Justice.” It’s potent, political and—of course—never predictable.
