Screaming Females Rose Mountain

Screaming Females have always been known for their scabrous guitars and hypnotic, heavy grooves—a brash style that’s led to tours with such like-minded acts as Dinosaur Jr., Throwing Muses and The Dead Weather. But on the new Rose Mountain, the New Jersey trio harnesses and sculpts their trademark aggression into concentrated ruptures of indie, punk and metal—from Sabbath-style heavy metal riffage (“Ripe”) and fuzzed-out space-rock (“Triumph”) to gothic-grunge simmering (the title track) and distortion-creased blues hollers (“Wishing Well”). While no less strident than their previous work, the tension-driven album feels more like controlled chaos this time—perhaps because Rose Mountain marks the first time Screaming Females have used an outside producer, noted heavyweight Matt Bayles (Mastodon, The Sword). Still, it diminishes Screaming Females’ collective talent to give Bayles total credit for the record’s direction; this is the work of a band perfecting its bewitching abrasiveness.