Radkey
Dark Black Makeup
Release Date: Aug 21, 2015
Genre(s): Punk, Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Garage Punk
Record label: Strange Loop Records
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Album Review: Dark Black Makeup by Radkey
Very Good, Based on 6 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Band of brothers hit the target with first shot. Lou Reed once sang about having kids and how he would ‘keep the tyke away from school and tutor him myself/Keep him from the poison of the crowd’. Maybe Radkey’s dad was listening..
Based on rating B
Brothers Dee, Isaiah, and Solomon Radke may be in a family band, but you won’t mistake this Missouri trio for the Hansons, the Jacksons, or the Osmonds. Radkey’s reference points come from a different subdivision of music history, and they wear them as Isaiah might wear a patch safety-pinned to his denim jacket: without apology or second thought. Their debut album, Dark Black Makeup, is a 13-track clinic in why the leanest, meanest punk rock always seems to come from kids who aren’t old enough to play half the venues in town.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Dee, Isaiah and Solomon Radke were always going to be punks. They’ve got the smalltown upbringing – the three brothers were raised in St Joseph, Missouri, where there’s nothing to do except get bored, grow frustrated and write songs about it. They’re natural outcasts, only attending school for a year before dropping out to be homeschooled by their mum Tamiko.
Based on rating 6/10
After issuing a pair of well-received EPs in 2013, brothers Dee, Isaiah, and Solomon Radke, all of whom were well under the voting age at the time of release, looked poised to bring their vintage, Misfits-obsessed punk rock sound to the world's stage. After a vigorous bout of touring (and home schooling), the St. Joseph, Missouri-based trio headed into the studio and began work on their much anticipated debut long-player.
Based on rating 3/5
For a garage-punk band who have barely even broken into their twenties, Radkey are already pretty damn sure of themselves. There’s no messing around here. Their debut full-length, ‘Dark Black Makeup’ may look like an ambitious effort on the outside – a debut boasting thirteen tracks, after all, is no mean feat - but it’s as sure-footed and solid an effort as any young band could wish for.
Opinion: Excellent
Kids these days. It’s the first line from 21 year old lips. Radkey have grown, punk to the brim, and come with the same mentality: throwing themselves at Dark Black Makeup with ragdoll abandon, fast, mean and leering. Out of them spirals a teen horror flick: a forty three minute skulk through a graveyard with a girl older than you, dyed hair and her septum pierced.
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