Review: Jeff the Brotherhood & Screaming Females @ The Lounge Dallas

For a one-and-a-half person band, Jeff the Brotherhood is loud. Half because the guitarist played with only three strings. I don't mean "they broke mid-way through the set"--I'm talking the strings were patiently removed beforehand so that power chords would be the only thing you would hear. Which I noticed when guitarist, Jeff Orrall, took his extra long XLR cable for a heavy metal ride down the hallway all the way to the bar. That's about the time everyone at the bar turned their heads and shut the hell up.

Jeff the Brotherhood is, yes, two brothers: Jeff and Jake Orrall in vintage tees, smokers thin jeans and long 70's haircuts. For a heavy rock-punk band, the kind with metaphors of graveyards and smoke, they were surprisingly focused. Drummer Jake seemed to be on some sort of mega rhythm drug, keeping karate-punch fast drum beats in perfect pace. Jeff's voice live, however, is not the greatest thing you've ever heard, but with songs like "I'm a Freak" and "Screaming Banshee," what's the difference? That said, you have to hear their sound. My first blush impression was "Eh, I've heard this before in another bar," but their focus and timing were so strong it held attention. It was so strong that the audience wasn't really sure when they finished songs (it didn't help they actually had music playing when Jeff tuned his guitar): the songs rang out to the vibrant sound of not-clapping. In this setting, they were a perfect opening band. Granite freaking hard, loud and just...awesome.

Before the Screaming Females (pictured above) came on, a tiny woman in a Norman Bates floral print dress was drifting through the audience. I noticed her because she was so damn small (belly button high to the dude next to me), and her dress was something from Grandma's closet. This is lead singer Marissa Paternoster. Next, let me pause any sense of journalistic language and grammar here, they annihilated my face with rock and bone. Dude, Marissa Paternoster can wail! Jarret Dougherty and "King Mike" on drums and bass, respectively, can wail too! "Bell," from their LP Power Move, was a near perfect Dinosaur Jr. guitar homage, and some leopard scream rock howls from Paternoster; "Baby Teeth" was just as fast and completely furious, with catchy lyrics:

"i am tired of your mouth/ when you're talking about/ the injustice of speech/ on a bus to the beach"

Honestly, I liked every minute. The thrashing drums, the syrup heavy bass, and the solos...my god the solos. They were melting the corduroy off every single hipster jacket. Marissa Paternoster is a force of freaky nature on stage, with seemingly endless larynx wind speeds. Without her, the band becomes another hard punk cog in the machine, though a damn good one. Take a look at some of her lyrics (from "What if Someone is Watching Their T.V.?"):

"this a nice place that you've been living in/ all processed in cans / tricking black ponies into a crippled dance/ buried in the sand"

So, she takes it to new levels of scream vision. Luckily, The Females are on tour in the near future with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Here's a straight rule: I like any band that makes their guitars sound like harmonizing puma screams.