Home News Matt Matasci January 1st, 2019 - 6:33 PM

After a great 2018 that featured one of the year’s best albums, New Jersey indie punk band Screaming Females played a sold-out New Year’s Eve Show at Chicago’s Beat Kitchen. At that show, the band covered a couple of Nirvana’s most well-known songs from Nevermind, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Breed.” While the former song is Nirvana’s best-known song (and maybe the one song most associated with the ’90s alt-explosion), “Breed” truly stands as a highlight of the Seattle punk band’s commercial-breakthrough second album.

Screaming Females lead singer Marissa Paternoster plays the first song fairly true to the original, though her signature vocals certainly add a new dynamic compared with Kurt Cobain’s iconic drawled and slurred singing on the original. “Breed” meanwhile got a lot chunkier in the hands of Screaming Females, though they certainly have the pop-punk chops to pull off the enthralling chorus of Nevermind‘s second-half gem.

Who knows if it’s coincidence, but Screaming Females recently posted about a Weezer cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”: