By Brett Milano

The three frontwomen who are playing at Sonia tonight have a few things in common, including all being friends. They were all on major labels during the ‘90s. They all had next-big-thing status at least once. And they’ve all proven to be first-class singer/writers of hard-edged pop songs.

Headlining the gig is ex-Fuzzy/Shepherdess/Monsieurs member Hilken Mancini, promoting her first official solo-band album. Mary Lou Lord, who went from busking the subways to indie acclaim, is coming out of semi-retirement to open the show. And if the Cujo doesn’t sound familiar, the name of co-leader Jen Trynin — a local favorite who made two Warners albums in ’94 and ‘97 — probably will.

Hilken Mancini’s always had a split musical personality: She can write gorgeous pop hooks, but also likes to turn it up and rock out. Both sides are in evidence on the album, though the pop side is a bit more pronounced; the opening “Set My Sights” is one of the catchier local songs you’ll hear this year. And it was written largely by accident.

“My records always come out sounding sweeter than I do live,” she said. “Set My Sights’ was the name of a Fuzzy song that we never released, recorded some time ago at J Mascis’ house. We couldn’t access the tapes so I was trying to pull that song out of my brain. And when we got the tapes back, of course it sounded totally different.” Making a solo album with her band (which includes Fuzzy bassist Winston Braman, Tsunami drummer Luther Grey and ex-Heavy Stud guitarist Melissa Gibbs) wasn’t intentional either; she was intending to continue an ongoing collaboration with Chris Colbourn, who got too busy with his regular band Buffalo Tom (he still appears on a few songs). “Then the pandemic happened. I didn’t like it that people were sick and dying, but it meant I could finally stop doing too much and get some writing done.”

Mancini has always been a mover and shaker, she cofounded two successful enterprises — Girls Rock Camp and Punk Rock Aerobics — and also runs the 40 South Street vintage store in Jamaica Plain. “What fuels me is probably anxiety, and what soothes me is work. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that’s how I am, I always need to be doing something. Even in Fuzzy, I was in a band with my best friend, my boyfriend and the Lemonheads’ drummer, and I was not having a good time. That’s over now but I definitely have a crazy work ethic.”

In Mancini’s view, a good club gig is more satisfying than playing to thousands of people — and she should know, having been invited with the Monsieurs to open for the Foo Fighters at Fenway Park in 2018. “I was running Girls Rock Camp that day, and I like to tell them that ‘Our music and our sound is going to fill the streets of Boston.’ Then I went to soundcheck and our music literally filled the streets near Fenway. So that felt pretty great.”

Jen Trynin’s return to music was a long time coming, after the major-label experience left her feeling bruised and used up (she even published a memoir about it, “Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be”). She only started the Cujo because a friend, bassist Matt Tahaney, kept pestering her to be in a band. And when they started writing songs together, she was amazed at how much she enjoyed it — especially since it turned out louder and more attitudinal than what she’d done previously. “It’s really the first time I’ve written with anything else, and some of these songs just make me laugh. Like our song ‘I Don’t Even Want You’ — it sounds so much like ‘70s and ‘80s leather metal music that it’s ridiculously wonderful. That blatant kind of childishly overt sexuality — I love that and I’ve missed it.”

Some of the Cujo tracks were produced by her late husband Mike Denneen, the well-respected producer and Q Division founder (she was widowed in 2018, another reason she shied away from music). “I spent a few years just hallucinating,” she says. She does plan on making more music, though in a more serious vein: She’s writing a second memoir about her widowhood, with an accompanying set of songs. And she will play a few of her old local hits during the Cujo set this week.

“What I literally want to do right now is to make up with music, like it’s an old friend. I had such a rough relationship with music than I want to say, ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a bad partner.’ We all have things we have to live through. But when you start feeling like you want to rock, I think you owe it to other people to go out there and rock.”

Mary Lou Lord has always been fueled by her love of other peoples’ music; so it happened that after years offstage (mainly due to a shoulder injury) she saw a recent gig by English artist Nick Saloman, aka the Bevis Frond, a longtime friend and collaborator. “I saw Evan Dando recently as well. The fact that they’re still out there playing, as good if not better, was inspirational to me. It meant that you don’t have to retire just because you’re older. So I went home and wrote a song, a little pop song, with some of Nick’s help. The song itself is no big deal, but it was a big deal that I wrote it.”

The song, probably called ‘On the Radio’ is partly about her friend Elliott Smith, but it’s not a sad farewell. “It’s about hearing a million kids singing his songs, which is really heartwarming. So the radio is kind of metaphorical, but nobody wants to sing words like ‘Youtube’ or ‘Spotify’.”