Friday, March 16, 2007

Radio America

To their credit, Radio America has made it clear from the beginning that they were in it for the good fight, the slow boil, the long haul. When they show up at the door of your club bearing guitars and singing show tunes you’ve got to let ‘em in. When they drink all your roommate’s beer after your birthday party is already over, you’ve got to forgive them. Why? Because they write beautiful tunes full of, yeah, sentiment and melody; because they can rhapsodize about geopolitics and Sanskrit texts without sounding like Chris Martin or Anderson Cooper; and because they can play rock and roll as ferociously and as joyously as anyone this side of 1977 ever has.

2006 release 'Raise High' is the follower to their 2003 debut 'This Is Radio America'. Raise High is a punk rock epic poem. It is a collection of 9 songs inhabited by the pathetic ballads of hepcat boys who roam backlit, boozed streets of New York, London, and Boston cheating death, storming windmills, scaling bridges, smoking cigarettes and wooing riot grrls, all while talking to God. Singers Tom Stuart and Jesse Reno trade lines and choruses over guitar amps as loud as Sherman tanks while drummer Robby VanSaders plays the fuck right out of the Keith-Fucking-Moon school of percussion.

In fact, ‘Raise High’ would sound like ‘Who’s Next’ if Pete Townshend had soul...or maybe, ‘Up the Bracket’ if Carl Barat owned a Marshall amp and Pete Doherty could see straight…or maybe, ‘Nevermind’ if Kurt Cobain wanted to live…or maybe, ‘American Idiot’ if it had been produced by Tom Verlaine. Point is, quite simply, it’s an American classic, better yet, a Trans-Continental classic. It’s music that begs you to not go quietly. It’s songwriting that laughs in the face of despair. It’s the sound of young men running themselves into the ground for art. It’s pure fucking magic is what it is. ~ official bio

Radio America - Aim High In Steering
Radio America - Mahabharata
Radio America @ MySpace


Bonus:
Paolo Nutini - These Streets (2006)
John Mayer - Continuum (2006)
Goo Goo Dolls - Let Love In (2006)
Audioslave - Revelations
Daft Punk - Discovery
DJ Shadow - Entroducing + The Private Press
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/yotjon
The Kooks - Inside In, Inside Out
Razorlight - Razorlight
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/2bbh3c
KT Tunstall - Eye To The Telescope
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/2dzf9v
The Stars - Set Yourself On Fire
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/yogcel
Ben Folds, Jack Johnson, Jeff Hanson, Gotan Project, etc.
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/yq8o6n
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam (2006)
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/oe4lw
Bob Sinclair - Western Dream (2006)
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/256l2k
VA - Man Ray Vol.3
[CODE]http://tinyurl.com/2fqpkw

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