Jeff the Brotherhood/ Screaming Females

  Jeff the Brotherhood/ Screaming Females- Split 7″
 5/10

This isn’t quite what I expected from Jeff the Brotherhood and Screaming Females. Both these tracks seem very conservative, are clean cut and have a pretty standard rock sound. Compared to their previous releases, both bands have dragged home the rope on their wild ways, stripping away all the noisy raucous aggression and replacing it with catchy modern rock guitar riffs and, dear I say it, some pretty plain singing. Jeff the Brotherhood’s contribution to the 300 copy limited edition pressing, is a song called ‘Bone Jam’. It’s probably about as close to pop music as the band has ever come, with a chorus melody that harks back to The Beach Boys; eating candy floss instead of sheet metal. The guitars are soft, lacking the sort of raw aggression that has completed their previous work. They stick to a simple rhythm instead of letting things get loose, which reins the song in and keeps things very clean. The Screaming Females track ‘I Do’ suffers similar failures, Marissa’s vocals sound flat and lack her usual bite. She never lashes out, which is usually a driving force behind the band, along with her razor sharp guitar parts which twist and distort into all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes. The structure sounds too coordinated and ‘I Do’ breaks out into chaos right when you expect it too. Screaming Females’ usual unpredictable nature is very boring when you take away the craziness and that’s exactly what they’ve done here.
Nick