Screaming Females compensate for one half of its moniker not being entirely accurate-- two-thirds of the New Jersey trio is male, after all-- by redoubling its efforts on the other half. Last year's Steve Albini-produced Ugly was a ferocious post-punk, post-90s, post-patience for your sorry ass guitar-rock record. It sprawled like a double gatefold classic rock LP, but the tone was intensely, if not narrowly, aggressive. The group's sole Screaming Female, singer/guitarist Marissa Paternoster, tore through a series of loose songs spotlighting her unpredictable vocal and six-string contortions. Any bruises left in her wake were intentional.
The new Chalk Tape EP is half as long as Ugly, but twice as musically diverse. The record's short, economical songs expand on the psychedelic influences broached on Ugly, and take them into more sophisticated emotional terrain. Chalk Tape even subs in an acoustic guitar every now and then, and changes up the band's grunge/sludge template with Middle Eastern grooves and new wavey basslines. These subtle yet unmistakable musical flourishes accompany some of the hookiest, most melodic songs Screaming Females have ever recorded.
In a way, Chalk Tape feels like an act of reconnaissance, a cautious feeling-out to gauge whether fans will appreciate a relatively poppy follow-up to Ugly. Chalk Tape is composed of songs recorded throughout 2012 in a manner that deviated from the band's usual "jam it out in the studio" approach. These tracks started out as concepts written on a chalk board; the band then translated these ideas into songs, and laid them down quickly without further revisions. For the standout "Bad Men", the original concept could have been "Tusk-era Stevie Nicks ballad with a doom-folk twist"; that's what it ended up sounding like, anyway, thanks to Paternoster's surprisingly tender vocal and a demented, druggy coda that takes romantic desolation to a disquieting place. On the opposite end of Chalk Tape's spectrum is the brilliant "Crushing the Kingdom", a Dio-esque metal epic in 63 shred-filled seconds. In the middle is "Sick Bed"; a rubbery bassline gives the song an extra dose of sinister psych rock evilness, but it's Paternoster who nails you to the floor, double-tracking her voice on the verse and turning it into a duet between ghostly, undead witches.
Chalk Tape isn't completely removed from its predecessor; "Green Vapors" and the hellacious blast of white noise that is "Wrecking Ball" offer plenty of sudden, violent interruptions and skin-crawling rants. But now more than ever, Screaming Females can grab you with songs, rather than just an overpowering instrumental attack. "Poison Arrow" might be their best song yet-- Paternoster hangs back for the first part, letting the swinging rhythm section of Jarrett Dougherty and King Mike do most of the heavy lifting until slashing out some space for a choked, inverted guitar solo that stops just short of exploding. This is an exciting new direction for a very exciting rock band. Chalk Tape could wind up as an important transitional milestone on the way to a future breakthrough but for now, it's a very engaging record on its own.
