Red City Radio: The Dangers of Standing Still
Written by: Andrea Janov, CC2K Music Editor
Red City Radio’s The Dangers of Standing Still walks the line of pop-punk (that is more punk than pop) and melodic hardcore, allowing for each song to be powerful yet catchy as hell. Throughout the entire album the music is solid and the powerful gruff vocals never falter.
The album kicks off with An Introduction of Sorts, the assertive vocals and haunting echo act as a statement of purpose for the album, “It’s time that we lose our way home and it’s time that we found a new one”. The rest of the album is the journey and discovery of that new way. From the call to arms in Two for Flinching, “Together we can burn this fucking city to the ground”, to the metal inspired, Too Much Whiskey, and the catchy chorus of 50th and Western, the balance of music and vocals is stellar. The tracks are hard yet not afraid of harmony, using layered vocals that drop out at the exact right moments to drag the listener in so deep that the song envelopes them.
Continuing in the progression set up in An Introduction of Sorts, Spinning in Circles is a Gateway Drug, simultaneously looks backwards, “Never thinking about what we would become” and “Our dreams were our future” and forward to changing the course, “We’ll be whatever we choose to be”.
This is a solid punk album from beginning to end, especially identifiable to those twenty and thirtysomethings who that have grown up on a steady diet of punk rock and have sacrificed a bit of that ideal in order to take a job to pay the bills. This album reminds them that change is always possible.
I will always be a sucker for melodic hardcore with hooks so catchy you cannot help screaming along, I can’t wait until they head over to the east coast, I can only imagine the sea of fists thrashing to the beat.
Buy The Dangers of Standing Still at Paper + Plastick (and choose from four vinyl color options) or download it from iTunes.