no. 24 — All at Once by Screaming Females

Screaming Females snuck up on me. I didn’t think I’d like them because their earlier albums were a little too jam-band meets heavy punk for me. But then I saw them live. They played the first U+N Fest I went to, a festival I consider Baltimore tradition even though its only existed since 2012. It takes place in my favorite Baltimore venue, the Ottobar. This was the 5th ever U+N Fest, and Screaming Females was one of the headliners. I had never heard of them aside from the quick listen when I bought the tickets, but everything about their performance completely exceeded my expectations.

First off, when the band takes the stage and starts playing, it’s hard to reconcile what you’re hearing with what you’re seeing. It’s just three people, the frontwoman, Marissa Paternoster, is small in stature and speaks softly, but sings in this deep, massive boom of a voice. Her fingers absolutely fucking fly over the frets of her guitar. She has so much power behind her, not just with her clearly insane set of lungs, but with the massive level of skill she possesses as a musician. Paternoster was named the 77th greatest guitarist of all time in 2012, which to me, someone who cannot play more than two chords, is really fucking cool.

So they get up on stage. It’s been a long day of being in a crowd, of being surrounded by strangers, of existing in a loud space. I was tired, pretty ready to go home. It was late and I wanted to sleep. But Screaming Females instantly brought energy back into me. I didn’t know any of their songs, but the way the audience reacted it was clear that they were a Big Fucking Deal. And as soon as their first song was over, I realized why. They are so GOOD at what they do. While they don’t play many of their slower songs during their sets, especially not at a punk festival like this one, their ability to switch between hard punk tracks to songs like “Hopeless” on Rose Mountain and “Deeply” on All at Once just make each song feel more special. They’ve been making consistently amazing albums for more than 14 years. That’s an absolute feat.

While Rose Mountain was the album that came out when I first started getting into them, their most recent album, All at Once, is my favorite. While I didn’t like the jam-band riffs they got into at first, I love this album for that exact ability. It’s like they get a melody or a chord progression stuck in their brains, and create an entire album out of it. Each song is unique, but they all tie back to the same core. All at Once feels like the best representation of that. Their ability to snare you into a song is absolutely hypnotic.

I really suggest watching the music video for “I’ll Make You Sorry[1].” There’s one shot in that video of Paternoster playing, and I swear her fingers blur with speed. Listen to All at Once or Rose Mountain, too. Their music is bound to seduce you the way it did me.

[1] The guitar solo starts around 2:40.