“We were gonna call ourselves the Real Talkers in the beginning. We’re actually just taking quotes from people and making songs out of them, so we did kinda feel like we were doing a little shit talking at that point, but it was nice shit talking. We were just having fun, even though the name makes it sound like we’re a bunch of assholes.”
Don’t be fooled by the band’s name, the Shit Talkers are probably the realist group of girls you’ll ever know. Their album I Scream is an in-your-face punk rock record filled with double entendres, real-world lyrics, and occasional screaming. It’ll make you laugh and bang your head ‘til you snap your neck.
“I think a lot of times there’s negative connotations with [the name] ‘Shit Talkers,’” explains frontwoman Liz Mantle. “People think that you’re saying bad things, you know, we always say we just like to talk about shit.” Mantle continues: “We like to talk about the world and stuff. We just wanna have some fun and laugh, so we come up with crazy things.”
I Scream explores various flurries of tempo and subject matter, getting more aggressive as the record progresses. The opening track “Ewwwww” is a destructive punk-smasher that sparks imagination of kids in mohawks affectionately bashing each-other through the walls of a thrashy house-party. The second track, “Normal Love,” will have you screaming “I love you” and “I hate you” at the top of your lungs as if you’re in a valiant tug-of-war between wanting to kiss your partner or tell them to fuck off. Mantle describes the track as an anti-love song.
“‘Normal Love’ started as a conversation between the drummer and I. She just went through a crazy breakup and somebody else we knew had just lost their spouse. We were just asking that question: ‘is there a normal love?’ And then it turned into a song.” Mantle mentions.
It’s an interesting contrast that the album is called I Scream and the cover features the band standing in front of a giant ice-cream cone, a commonly known comfort food. As a whole, I Scream feels like an encapsulation of female angst, with subjects ranging from social annoyances in “Shut Up” to sexual deviance in “8th Dick” and “Fukn Guyz.” Singing songs about subjects that may literally want to make Mantle scream at times, I Scream’s aggressive soundscape can serve itself as a comfort food to the ears of all punk-rockers alike.