- They are from the US (St Joseph, Missouri to be precise) Brits love US guitar bands. See: Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Interpol, QOTSA, KOL, The Strokes, The White Stripes... Springsteen?
- They're black but don't rap
- They're 3 brothers.(History tells us that this combination work: see Hanson)
- They are young. 15-19. People love it when 'youngsters' produce guitar music.
- Every song has at least a 15 second epic lead guitar solo. DIDDLY DIDDLY DIDDLA.
- THEY'RE FUCKING GREAT
I have to admit that i've featured Radkey more because I love their music than because of the EP artwork.
THE COVERART
A selection of samurai swords overlaid with text in an A-Team style font. It's definitely consistent with their image of casual eighties, punkness.
THE MUSIC
Really hard to place the music. The guitars are undoubtedly punk in all their four chord, distorted charm. The drums come across as fairly lo-fi, no stabbing snare or syncopated fills that filled the songs of pop-punk. This is pure guttural punk music. Misfits, DOA stylee. But the vocals... they're not so punk. They're sung what perhaps lazily but fairly accurately can only be described as Strokes-style. There's definitely more than a hint of Julian Casablancas in there. Not just just tone but the melodic, I could be humming to myself in the shower, casualness of the lyrics.
Song number 4 on the EP, 'Red Letter' gets the most visceral with a nice bit of energy in the screamed vocals.
In my book, a good band must do one or both of the following; 1) make music that is so surprising in its innovativness that you can't help but listen again, tell a friend, Google them and become a fan. 2) make music of a sound and genre that has been done before, but do it better than it's ever been done. Radkey are the later.This EP is good. They've been Guardian 'New Band of The Day', played by Zane Lowe on Radio 1, played Download Festival and just played Camden's BarFly with A&R from Island Records in the audience...
Best live band in London tonight? Quite possibly... @radkeyrock @simonmcculloch had good taste!… http://t.co/ZyhXcegCOB
— Olivia Mee (@OliviaMeeLDN) June 19, 2013
Like I say...NEXT BIG THING!
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