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What if Brown Sugar was a ska band?
Our take: Lumpy's description of this record, "What if Brown Sugar was a ska band?," definitely made me LOL, but it turns out that it's not too far off the mark. Take Brown Sugar's skewed, slightly pop-inflected take on bent hardcore punk and add a saxophone, and you've got a pretty good indication of what Radiation Risks sounds like. Usually when a punk or hardcore band has a saxophone I expect it to be some kind of skronky, Albert Ayler-influenced type of thing, but Radiation Risks' sax player can actually play. Usually they follow the bass line (giving those parts kind of an early Rocket from the Crypt-type feel), and occasionally busting into some full-on HOT SAXXX LIXXX. Some people will hate it for sure, but I'm stoked to hear a band with a sound that doesn't really resemble what anyone else out there is doing, and this is particularly noteworthy given that much of what made Brown Sugar so strong is still very apparent here.