Screaming Females

Screaming Females were a three-piece indie rock band from New Brunswick, NJ (disbanded in 2023) led by singer-guitarist Marissa Paternoster. From a stylistic point of view, if indie rock were a board and one wanted to drop a dart at the dead center, it would have hit. They were a textbook power trio with Dougherty and Abbate on drums and bass, pounding away in style, while Paternoster sang in a booming, powerful voice and did all the necessary shredding on the guitar. They have a solid catalog of consistently good rock albums and songs that are fairly well written and performed, with strong riffs, melodies, and lyrics. Their music was downshifted in later albums just enough to open up some space around the band, which in turn helped them focus on the craft of songwriting, leading to a string of songs that can boast a lot more clarity in the presentation and variety in sound.