Screaming Females at the Replay Lounge

​I can only image the amount of shit that has been hoisted on New Brunswick, NJ power trio Screaming Females for its name. In the canon of awful band names, it isn’t an offender on the level of Natalie Portman’s Shaved Hear or Crane Your Swan Neck, but the fact that only one member is actually female might disappoint those hoping to see an awesome riot girrrrl act, or a punk gender-bending trio of cross-dressers.

The female is Marissa Paternoster, a beguiling petite young woman who is seemingly shy until she grips her guitar, unleashing a world of fury. Big things come in small packages (like, say, dynamite), and the diminutive Paternoster is the equivalent of a stick TNT shoved up a muffler. At the band’s set at the Replay on Thursday night, Paternoster lead her fellow yelling women through a routine of heavy rockers that cribbed the best elements from punk, surf and prog creating a sonic palette ripe with monster riffage.