Screaming Females

Hailing from New Jersey, Screaming Females fuse blistering guitar textures, direct yet tuneful melodies, and sharp dynamic contrasts with a steadfast D.I.Y. ethos, yielding their distinctive strain of punk-tinged indie rock. The Brunswick trio—Marissa Paternoster on guitar and vocals, Michael Abbate on bass, and Jarrett Dougherty on drums—draws equal parts from Dinosaur Jr. and Sleater-Kinney while upholding indie rock’s unfiltered ethos, delivering guitar-led songs to audiences on their own terms. Their initial full-length, 2007’s Baby Teeth, showcased a lean, confident stance that later gave way to more intricate arrangements and heightened guitar intensity from Paternoster on 2012’s Ugly and 2018’s All at Once. Even with elaborate song forms and denser sonics, 2023’s Desire Pathway retained the group’s core drive and vitality.

The band formed in 2005 and issued its opening statements in 2007 by self-releasing the debut album Baby Teeth alongside the “Arm Over Arm” b/w “Zoo of Death” 7-inch. They swiftly followed with the also self-released sophomore effort What If Someone Is Watching Their T.V.? In 2008 the members concentrated on split releases, including one with Full of Fancy for Let’s Pretend Records and another of Neil Young covers alongside Hunchback. Greater visibility arrived in 2009 through standout CMJ appearances in New York and a tour supporting Dead Weather; that year they signed with Don Giovanni, an independent label they have remained with ever since, which also reissued Baby Teeth and What If Someone Is Watching Their T.V.?

Castle Talk, their fourth album, appeared in 2010 and drew broader notice when the group was profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered. The same year brought Singles, a compilation of earlier non-album 7-inch tracks. Their fifth album, the Steve Albini-recorded Ugly, surfaced in 2012; during that period they toured with Garbage and joined the alt-rock band for a cover of Patti Smith’s “Because the Night,” later included on the Females’ 2019 collection Singles Too and on a deluxe edition of Garbage’s 2021 album No Gods No Masters. Their first live release, Live at the Hideout—also captured by Albini—emerged in 2014. Working with producer Matt Bayles, the band recorded the 2015 studio album Rose Mountain. February 2018 saw the arrival of All at Once, a stylistically wide-ranging record featuring Brendan Canty of Fugazi; by late 2019 the group issued another set of rare non-LP sides titled Singles Too.

During the 2021 COVID-19 pandemic, which halted touring, Marissa Paternoster issued her debut solo album Peace Meter, with each participant tracking parts remotely from home studios. The band resumed activity in 2022 and entered the studio to lay down songs Paternoster had written in 2019. Reuniting with producer Matt Bayles, they cut 2023’s Desire Pathway at Pachyderm Studios, the Minnesota facility where Nirvana recorded In Utero and PJ Harvey made Rid of Me.