Album Reviews

There’s really no question if Radkey are going to be huge. Just listen to the band’s debut full-length once and you’ll know it’s just a question of when.

Dee, Isaiah and Solomon Radke were destined to be punkrockers. They grew up in the relatively small city of St Joseph, Missouri where there was nothing to do but get bored. The oldest two went to school for a year and then decided it wasn’t for them because no one in their class knew Led Zeppelin. They’ve been homeschooled by their mom since, which gave them plenty of time to rock out.

And rocking out is exactly what they do on “Dark Black Makeup”! The (lucky) thirteen tracks on here are propelled forward by Isaiah’s thumping basslines while Solomon is beating the shit out of his drum kit as if it owed him oney. And then there’s Dee, who knows a thing or two about writing a catchy riff. And who sounds a lot like Glenn Danzig. The Misfits is definitely one band you can compare these guys to, but they’ve definitely spent some of their time listening to early hardcore albums when they should have been doing their homework.

The title track that opens the album is catchy. “Love Spills” is catchier. “Le Song” comes with the same amount of reckless abandon Fidlar is known for. And just when you want to come up for air, there’s “Hunger Pain”, which brings out the crooner in Dee while his brothers slow down the song to the point where it wouldn’t look out of place in a lounge bar.

In case you don’t want to read all of the above… “Dark Black Makeup” is a friggin’ impressive debut. And they’re even better live.