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More and more often I come across think pieces that claim rock is dead, and I honestly have to wonder if the writers of those articles have ever listened to Screaming Females. The New Jersey punks have been ripping through sets at DIY spaces, hip venues, and large theaters from coast to coast for close to a decade, and front woman Marissa Paternoster‘s wild guitar shredding proves there’s still a life force in rock. She’s dialed down the manic riffs on this year’s Chalk Tape, a warm, slightly muddy home-recorded EP that takes its name from the method the group adopted in writing the songs for it: Paternoster, drummer Jarrett Dougherty, and bassist “King” Michael Abbate decided to write all their ideas on a chalkboard, then employed each concept in the process of making the seven tracks.
