RADIOACTIVITY - silent kill

Seems pretty safe to assume that almost no one doubted Radioactivity's ability to follow up their 2013 Dirtnap debut with something equally stunning. Frontman and chief songwriter Jeff Burke (The Marked Men, The Reds, The Potential Johns) has certainly done more than enough to earn that kind of expectation and pressure. But Silent Kill, which finds Burke backed by Marked Men compatriot Mark Ryan and two-thirds of Bad Sports (Daniel Fried and Gregory Rutherford), does more than merely match the virtues of its self-titled predecessor.

Radioactivity's first LP was rightly hailed as a sort of sequel to The Marked Men's remarkable run through the first decade of the millennium, and while Silent Kill bears the unmistakable hallmarks of that band's tightly wound "Denton sound," Radioactivity can now lay claim to a sonic territory of their very own. Burke's distinctive hooks dig as deep as ever, but the scope of his vision has expanded, and now that the Burke/Ryan/Fried/Rutherford all-star team has had some time to cohere, Radioactivity can do all sorts of damage in less than thirty minutes.

Although the twelve songs on Silent Kill abide one strict rule--providing garage punk pleasure at all costs--Radioactivity bend that mandate in myriad ways. Breathless ragers like "Battered" and "No Alarm" are as fleet and raw as anything in the combined canon of Radioactivity's members, while mid-tempo heartbreakers "Way Out," "Connection" and "Where I Come From" find Burke and company opening up their sound to let in a little tenderness. And then there are songs like "Not Here" or "With You," which enact perfect unions of melody and kinetic energy.

Admirers of Burke's legacy will be not only satisfied, but pleasantly surprised.