With over a decade under their belt, The Hellflowers have become a fixture on the Los Angeles scene, blending punk, garage rock, rock ‘n’ roll and pop melody with a DIY attitude they’ve carried from the start. And that matters here, because Wild Ones is, above all, about refusing to let anyone else decide who you should be.
Musically, there’s a strong Pretenders feel running through it. The mix of tough guitars, melody and punk energy brings ‘Tattooed Love Boys’ to mind, though The Hellflowers push things into a brighter, more open space, far from the drier, twitchier edge of Chrissie Hynde‘s band. There’s plenty of power pop in there too: the punch of The Go-Go’s, the melodic rush of The Muffs, all sitting on a harder rock backbone that keeps things punchy without weighing them down.
At heart, Wild Ones taps straight into that very L.A. tradition of women making loud, guitar-driven music without caring too much where garage stops and punk, hard rock, new wave or pop starts. The hook matters. The momentum matters. And that chorus is made to be yelled back from the front row.
Then there’s the lyric. No clever detours, no dressing it up: this is about autonomy. About refusing to be moulded, categorised or corrected to fit someone else’s idea of who you should be. And because it’s always framed as “we”, what could have been a personal statement turns into something collective.
“I believe women need to remember that we are always in control of our autonomy—forever. This song is a reminder that no one can change us or break us, and that we can be as wild and fierce as we want to be.” Christina Eskew, vocalist.
Let no one tell us who we have to be. We can be whoever the hell we want.
Wild Ones is the first taste of Haunted, due in February 2027. More songs and videos are on the way before then, so consider this the opening shot.
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