I like Radkey for the fact they sound new but would have fit in any of the ‘90s Epitaph comps. They don’t sound like they’re trying hard for nostalgia points; rather, they’re rendering the fat from Misfits and Youth Brigade in skater-meets-horror-punk and searing a whole new steak.
Once upon a decade ago, we had a new recruit: Level. Usually, the kids coming around would know something about what they were getting into. They’d have the music all lined up and poor imitations of the uniform, whatever they thought that was.
Level, however, had no idea. Nothing. Couldn’t name a Ramones song to save his life.
But he made up for it in drive and charisma. He wanted a brotherhood and the type of music was secondary - music itself was what mattered - and that personality was far more important than how many Cro-Mags lyrics one could cite.
I can teach anyone anything, but I can’t teach passion. And he had passion in spades.
At the point my tenure that Level started coming around, I had heard all the saccharin copies of old bands I could stomach. Kids just wanted to relive other people’s glory days.
But when Level would hang out and hear Endangered Species or Take ‘Em All, he’d take it back, learn to play it, and the next time he’d hang out, he’d have some new song. Sounded absolutely nothing like what he’d heard - but it was still good. He introduced me to that combination of naïveté and talent that can flip an entrenched opinion on its head.
This is what Radkey reminds me of - Level’s refreshing spin on a genre I’d heard a million other times. Reminding me that there can be something new again.
Level died when a car rammed his bike a few years ago. Shout out, brother.
Glore is probably the closest to hardcore punk they get a la Bad Brains, and too bad, because I think they were on to something here:
Parade It and Song of Solomon are pure Radkey sound:
At least as of a few years ago, they were starting to update their sound, not unlike The Ramones: