SCREAMING FEMALES
A colleague recently compared Screaming Females shred-mistress Marissa Paternoster to Jimi Hendrix, fully expecting to be burned at the stake for his blasphemy by the Guitar Hero and Baby Boomer sets. Not sure if that ilk would even read something that didn’t include the tired list of usual suspects, but the lineage is accurate — I would only add the seminal J Mascis as the filter through which Paternoster channels her inner Hendrix. For it’s the Dinosaur Jr. guitar whiz who was mostly responsible for bringing the notion of guitar chops into the punk and indie worlds when such things as “ability to shred” were considered liabilities more than assets. But such genre signifiers are increasingly pointless the deeper we disappear down the Interwebs’ rabbit hole, and over the New Jersey trio’s eight-year, five-LP run, their songs have blended punk rage, indie angularity and ’60s/’70s riffology into a seamless and organic whole. The rhythm section of Jarrett Dougherty (drums) and “King Mike” Rickenbacker (bass) are adept at all of the above, and provide ballast for Paternoster’s aerial six-string flights and howling-mad lyrics.
— John Schacht